44



We had heard of the Storm-Petrels nesting habitually

under huge rocks in very inaccessible places upon a smaller

island that lies more to the westward of the group we are

visiting, but never on the island we are now exploring.


The Puffins and the Razor-bills give vent to uncanny

grunts and groans, which sometimes sound as if their “tummies” -

were aching badly ; but as I stumble over the boulders, what is

that curious croaking chatter immediately beneath my feet ? Now

it has stopped—yes ! but there is a similar sound only a yard away.

It might be a frog, or a swallow, and yet not quite—something

between the croak of the former and the warbling of the latter.

I am on my knees in a moment, for it is a vocal sound that is

new to me. There again ! with my ear to an opening amongst

the stones, it is distinctly just below me.


The voice of a bird ! what can it be ? I must remove the

big stones to satisfy curiosity—curiosity stirred by keen excite¬

ment ! And this lends me strength ! The June sun is broiling

down, its heat reflected into one’s face from the stones them¬

selves ; but the mystery must be solved, and taking off my coat

I bend myself to the task, removing with much exertion stones

of no light weight, and striving whilst so doing to keep smaller

ones, dislodged from their positions, from rolling into the hollow

I am making. There again! the same frog-like chattering L

What does the heat matter, the risk of a sunstroke or an

apoplectic fit, which I confess seems imminent. What does a

bruised nail signify, or a bleeding knuckle ?


I am two feet down now, and cannot be far from the

foundation. An old Puffin grunts close by me, and pops his

head out with a queer squint in his right eye as he turns it up

and looks at me as much as to say—“What on earth are you

interfering here for ? Spratts and sand-eels ! blazes and turf ! do

leave us alone; you’ve already dropped four pebbles on my back,

and sent a shower of sand into my left eye.”—with which he

pops back again, and I hear him scrimmaging off by another

way : he is evidently greatly perturbed ! So I proceed with my

employment, and after chucking out some smaller stones as

large as my head, remove one, immediately beneath which is

sitting what at first sight might be a House-Martin, a bird of

much the same size, sooty-black all over except for a beautiful

snow-white patch above the tail. At once I see that it is a

Storm-Petrel, and as she only shuffles two or three inches awajq

revealing in so doing a round white egg, minutely dotted with



