The Zoologist — April, 1866. 187 



white with streaks and blotches of purple-black, but I saw other birds 

 of this variety sitting on eggs of the usual green hue. Our boat- 

 man looked upon this egg as a much greater acquisition than I did, 

 and said that a gentleman had offered him a pound for one the year 

 before. 



The ledges near the Pinnacles were tolerably well tenanted by the 

 kittiwake gull, but I did not notice any of the common gull [Lams 

 catrus), although my friend Mr. Harting informs me that he saw, and I 

 believe shot, some when he was there in May, 1863; indeed, never 

 expecting to find them breeding there, I did not look out closely. On 

 the Walmsies and on Staple Island were a good many puffins, and on 

 one of them, or Great Harkness, I forget which, a large colony of 

 cormorants, but the shag is not found, I believe. Abundance of lesser 

 blackbacked gulls everywhere, with a sprinkling of herring gulls, and 

 eider ducks. 



Returning to the keeper's house on Brownsman, we were shown by 

 his lad a number of eider ducks, sitting on their nests as tamely as 

 common fowls ; indeed they sat so closely, and were so difficult to 

 distinguish from the herbage-covered ruins of an old tower, that, but for 

 his previous knowledge of the nests, we might have unintentionally 

 scared some of the sitting birds by going too near. There was a large 

 colony of terns near the house, and we satisfied ourselves that all were 

 of one species, feeling pretty confident that they were Sterna hirundo. 

 With but little hope of success my friend set a horse-hair snare round 

 one clutch of eggs, and to our great delight, before lunch was over, the. 

 lad came in bringing a bird which had been caught, and which proved 

 to be the common tern, so that we were enabled to obtain some identi- 

 fied eggs. Whilst we were occupied with this colony a pair of rock pipits 

 showed great uneasiness, coming quite close to me, and, on asking the 

 lad if he knew of a nest, he immediately showed me one within a yard 

 of the spot where I was standing : it contained four eggs, which I took. 

 I may mention here that the visitor has to buy all the eggs he wants, 

 even although he may have taken them himself, but the price is not 

 ruinous. 



The principal colony of the Sandwich tern is on a small flat island, 

 one of the " Noxies," near St. Cuthbert's Tower, and on our approach 

 a dense cloud of these birds rose on the wing; there must have been 

 at least a thousand of them. The place was covered with their eggs, 

 deposited in clutches of two on the bare ground. I saw none of the 

 rich dark-ground specimens, which is perhaps attributable to their 



