1907-1908.] The Bird Life of an Outer Island. 1 1 



of another unfortunate bird who happened to be on the edge. 

 From a good position you could survey scores of incubating 

 Guillemots, all curiously enough with their faces to the cliff, 

 as if they were resolutely shunning the pleasures of the outer 

 world, and bending all their energies to the dismal, thankless 

 task of hatching eggs. You might see Guillemots attempting 

 with the utmost — the most touching — self-confidence to pre- 

 serve their egg on a slope whose angle looked like 60 degrees. 

 This was particularly manifest on a small rock-stack which 

 the sea had isolated from the main cliffs, and where the con- 

 gestion of nesting Guillemots might have equalled, if it did 

 not surpass, the famous Pinnacles. It differed from its Fame 

 Island prototype, however, in having its upper surface pitched 

 at a fairly steep angle, and also, I doubt not, in the immunity 

 it had enjoyed from the attentions of bird photographers. The 

 result was that when we clambered down the island cliff and 

 made a sudden and memorable appearance opposite that stack, 

 there was a mighty and continuous ferment on its summit. 

 Several hundred Guillemots attempted to leave simultaneously, 

 and dozens of eggs made haste to follow their owners' example. 

 We were dismayed at the havoc we had wrought, but were 

 inclined, such is human weakness, to blame the Guillemot. 

 "We had paid the Guillemot too high a compliment, credited 

 him with more intelligence than he possessed ; we and the 

 Guillemot would both, so we unctuously consoled ourselves, 

 profit by the lesson ! Although an outstanding one, this was 

 not by any means the only case of Guillemot miscalculation. 

 I have seen an egg in a crevice where it was quite impossible 

 for the bird to cover it at all, and scores of instances of eggs 

 toppling over or otherwise coming to grief from what looked, 

 from the human standpoint, uncommonly like carelessness. I 

 do not think there is any bird quite so careless of her egg or 

 eggs as the mother Guillemot is of that monstrous pyriform 

 one, which forms her all, nor any bird which surpasses her in 

 the attention and affection which she bestows on the solitary 

 chick who has run the gauntlet of so many mischances. It 

 is still a matter of dispute among some ornithologists as to 

 how this callow baby gets down from its lofty birthplace to 

 the sea, and we postponed our visit until July this year, so 

 that we might have an opportunity of satisfying ourselves at 



