The Zoologist — June, 1870. 2167 



I follow close behind ; we caullouslj climb with hands and feet down 

 the ledges of the precipice: the rock is slimy with the dung of the 

 birds, and the utmost caution is necessary; we creep along the foul 

 ledges, the guillemots stopping till the last moment before leaving 

 their beloved eggs ; there are so many that we unfortunately roll several 

 over and smash them. It seems a wise provision that the guillemots 

 lay on the lower and broader ledges, for they make so much more fillh 

 that if they occupied the higher ledges the filth running down would 

 pollute the whole face of the cliff, so that the other birds would be 

 most uncomfortably situated ; not that the guillemots make more dung 

 than the razorbills, but that they lay closer together and in greater 

 numbers. The bright-spotted green eggs look most beautiful on the 

 ledges, and I am tempted into many perilous places to get them. Most 

 of the eggs obtained on these broad ledges are so stained with filth that 

 they cannot be cleaned : the dark malachite-green eggs are stained of 

 a light sap-green colour by the excrement: the cleanest eggs are 

 those laid separately. The green and black-spotted eggs seem the 

 commonest varieties; but there are not such finely-marked eggs here 

 as I have seen at Ailsa Craig and Flamborongh Head. 



V. 



In crevices just below me are several guillemots incubating, and a 

 ringed guillemot in their midst : in order to observe whether its egg is 

 any different in colour from the others, I carefully approach: at my 

 approach nearly all the male guillemots have flown off, and each 

 female is still on her egg: they stand upright now, watching with 

 palpitating breasts and bills gaping with fright what I am going 

 to do, loth to leave their eggs till the last minute. This is not a ledge, 

 but an irregular basin from which a huge piece of rock has fallen, 

 leaving a succession of cracks, crevices and jumble of loose rock. 

 The ringed guillemot is laying in one of these crevices ; several razor- 

 bill auks in the same positions, and a few guillemots occupy the 

 flatter portions. As I cling to the rock, quite still, the guillemots 

 again incubate : as the egg is too high and large to stride over com- 

 fortably, the bird approaches it, and, bending over, uses her bill and 

 pushes it underneath her breast, working and writliing herself about 

 till the egg is comfortably settled. One poor bird, in her terror, has 

 awkwardly displaced her egg, which goes bump, bump, down the 

 irregular rock for about a foot; the poor guillemot follows, trying in 

 vain to stop it with her bill, till, lodged in a crevice, she works it 



