386 Ornithological Observations and Reflections in Shetland. 
as there are here, and I feel sure they turn over these stones, 
for I made out the required motion of the head and beak, as I 
have seen it in Jackdaws in England, when thus turning 
stones systematically. They also walk out upon the wet 
sands sometimes—as this afternocon—with the Kittiwakes, 
and with these they may come into collision, for I saw one 
being chased up the voe by a pair of them. The latter seemed 
very resentful, the pursuit was tenacious, and all disappeared 
round the head of the voe. When, after a little, the Kitti- 
wakes returned, they met other crows flying over the voe, but 
these they did not molest nor were they disturbed by others 
of their kind on the wing. From this one may feel sure that 
this crow—now I come to think of it I am not sure that it was 
not a pair—had outraged the feelings of these two Kittiwakes 
in some way, probably by pilfering. 
1 had occasion this evening to remark the effect of sudden 
surprise on these wary birds. Coming back where the lower 
slopes of the hills that crest the shores of the voe often make 
small green hillocks or knolls, as I surmounted one of these, 
there, opposite me, on another, and at a very close distance, 
stood three of them, and though they instantly saw me they 
did not fly away. I stopped and they stood motionless, 
looking at me, and I at them, for perhaps a full minute before 
they recovered, as it were, froma state of stupefaction, and went 
off. The distance between us, in a straight line, could hardly 
have been more than a dozen paces, and I was in full view 
from head to foot. No crow, and hardly any bird, could have 
dreamt, under ordinary circumstances, of letting a man stand 
thus near to them, but they seemed rooted to the ground by the 
sudden apparition of one, against whose approach they had had 
no opportunity of guarding. On two occasions under some- 
thing similar circumstances, I have noticed the same thing in the 
Pheasant and Woodpigeon. 
I saw quite a number of starlings this afternoon congre- 
gated upon the backs of Sheep, especially one which must 
have had at least seven or eight upon it—one on the head. 
As many, perhaps, were on the grass underneath it, others 
about its feet, and it looked as if these were picking at them, 
and the wool, as it hung, but I could not absolutely make this 
out. The sheep thus attended, as well as another one that had 
two or three upon its back, did not seem positively to object, 
but they stopped feeding, and with their heads held forward 
and a little upwards, presented a somewhat foolish appearance 
—the ordinary appearance of the sheep here, by the way, 
has nothing foolish about it, to my thinking, nor their character 
either. After a little, all the Starlings flew away. The 
sheep, by their attitudes, might have been waiting to have 
their heads searched as by the Jackdaws (see notes below). 
Naturalist, 
