KITTIWAKE. NATATORES. LARUS. 495 
the whole of its subsistence, being fish, crustacese, and other 
aquatic animal food, from the element over which it is seen 
almost constantly sporting. From the shortness and posi- 
tion of its legs it is unable to walk or run upon land with 
the same ease as its congeners, on which account, added to 
the necessity of supplying it with a fish diet, I have found 
it more difficult to be kept in a state of confinement than any 
of the others. Great numbers of this species breed upon the 
Bass Rock in the Frith of Forth, on Fowls-Heugh near 
Stonehaven, and other precipitous rocks on the eastern coast 
of Scotland. In England they breed at Flamborough Head 
in Yorkshire, and at the Fern Islands on the Northumbrian 
coasts, where they select the small clefts and narrow ledges 
of the perpendicular and detached basaltic rocks, called The 
Pinnacles, whose summits are occupied by the Guillemot and 
Razor-Bill. Upon these, although in many instances not 
above a hand’s-breadth wide, they build their nests (of sea- 
grass and other dry materials), and rear their young in se- 
curity. The latter seem to be instinctively aware of their 
perilous situation, where sometimes the least movement would 
precipitate them into the waves beneath, and are observed 
seldom to change their attitude in the nest till sufficiently 
fledged to be enabled to provide for their own safety. The 
egos, usually two in number, are of a greyish-white, slightly 
tinged with wood-brown, and blotched with dark or blackish 
brown and purplish-grey. During incubation the females 
are very tame, and will sit upon their eggs or callow young, 
though closely approached ; at the same time the males con- 
tinue to fly round in circles, uttering the frequently repeated 
cry, from the sound of which they have obtained their com- 
mon English name Kittiwake. In the young state this bird 
was formerly called the T'arrock, which was considered to 
be a distinct species; but its history is now better known, 
and the changes it undergoes from its earliest age to matu- 
rity (which is not attained till after the second autumnal 
moult) have been correctly ascertained. 
Food. 
Nest, &c. 
