4278 THE ZooLocist—JANvARY, 1875. 
smoking may also bear in mind that I have seen one such beginner so 
completely narcotised as to have suggested the thought of leaving him in a 
secure place, while men were sent for to haul him up the cliffs with ropes. 
The folk who write about fowling can seldom resist a little platitudinising as 
to ‘but a moment’s giddiness—but one false step’ —which would precipitate 
the adventurer headlong into the boiling depths below, &c.; but if they would 
vary the tune a little, and say ‘ But one small dram—but one single pipe of 
cavendish,’ they might do some good.”—P. 288. 
I could dwell for months on this subject of crag hunting: every 
minute Dr. Saxby turns a new page, and every page resuscitates 
illustrations, recollections, records, that I thought lost in the lapse 
of time. From the single egg to the single chick of the guillemot 
the transition seems natural, only the consequence of a parent’s 
warmth ; but other questions are opened up by the chipping of the 
egg-shell, by the introduction to life of this new being which is to 
become a fellow inhahitant with its parents of rock and sea. What 
is its first venture in life, or rather adventure? does it mount on its 
mother’s back like Ganymede on the eagle’s? Waterton thought so, 
and Mr. Gray evidently inclines to this opinion (‘ Birds of the West 
of Scotland, p. 421). But let us see what Dr.Saxby says: he seems 
disinclined to make even a guess. 
“With regard to the young birds themselves, ornithologists are still 
unable to decide how it is that while some of the young remain upon the 
rocks, others, not many days old, are to be seen swimming in the sur- 
rounding waters. Some of the people unhesitatingly assert that they have 
seen the parents take them upon their backs, and some that they are carried 
down to the water by the neck; but none of the men whose word can 
be relied upon would venture to commit themselves to such statements. 
Macgillivray, who was usually very careful in the collection of his evidence, 
quotes the words of one of his correspondents who asserts that the guillemots 
‘convey their young to the water by seizing them by the skin of the back 
of the neck, as a cat does a kitten,’ but he overlooked the fact that his 
informant merely wrote from old tradition, and, as I have ascertained in 
conversation, had never witnessed the act himself.”—P. 290. 
It was to be expected that Dr. Saxby would take great interest in 
the identity or otherwise of the common and ringed guillemots (Uria 
Troile and U. lachrymans), and it is evident that he has done so. 
His quotations are exactly to the point, but he seems very reluctant 
to express any decided opinion of his own. It is the perfection of 
