The Zoologist— Apiul, 1870. 2075 



roostiug-places of the shag iCarbo crislatus), not so much used in 

 the breeding season, but still frequented by bachelor or barren birds : 

 their nests are in the caverns, and are similar to that patch of yellow 

 wrack in that crevice on which a shag is sitting : the " scarts," as they 

 call the shags, wriggle their heads at us in an uncouth manner, then 

 while some plunge into the seething waves, diving solid as a stone, 

 others fly, with outstretched neck and slowly flapping wings, close 

 over the rolling gloomy waves. 



A few puffins are breeding on the banks of turf where the cliffs are 

 not so steep, and in the surging waters the demure little puffins are 

 diving, getting up close under us with evident astonishment. Looking 

 over the boat-.side, I can see the puffins flying under the water, using 

 their wings as in the air; their webbed feet seem used for steering — 

 it seems even to use its feet for that purpose when flying, as they are 

 stretched out as far apart as possible, and it even sometimes "kicks 

 out" with them when flying: these are the male birds, the females 

 are mostly sitting in their burrows. 



The gloom is thickening: a thin mist is slowly creeping up from 

 the horizon, obscuring and blotting out the islands, like unholy 

 thoughts across the mind, blotting out sweeter visions. Bernera, with 

 its lighthouse on the lofty cliffs of Barra Head, is obscured; the 

 fearful form of Ram Head on Mingalay looms dim and weird through 

 the gathering gloom. Out of the gloom the snow-white gannet skims, 

 whose home is lonely St. Kilda: rising in the air, with the gentlest 

 yet powerful flaps of its black-tipped wings, gracefully swooping 

 down to the tip of the black-green wave, gliding along the trough, lost 

 to our sight as the mountain waves tower over us, up with the speed 

 of thought, without one flap of those beautiful untiring wings, the 

 gannet impresses one with the idea of strength, and lightness, and un- 

 tiring vigilance : it seems, like the spirit of departed, doomed to haunt 

 the troubled sea. Observe how slowly the gannet flaps its wings, not 

 dipping them down so low as the gulls or herons; the least touch 

 seems to propel the powerful bird and send it skimming along the 

 trough of the wave, then, as it mounts to the top of the wave, altering 

 the angle of its wing, the wind catches it, and light as a feather it is 

 borne aloft, to skim down again untiringly, unceasingly. The gannefs 

 are on the look out for the shoals of herring, but as I did not see one 

 of the many skimming the water make a plunge, I presume the shoal 

 was not near the surface. But see that pirate-bird, with sooty back, 

 freckled white breast and streaming tail, swiftly dash out of the 



