266 Wild Ducks, Water-Birds, Sea- Fowl. 



till, at last, it fell over to yield them a rich reward for 

 patient perseverance and hard work. 



Wonderful, too, is the adaptation in the eggs of some 

 of these birds. Many of them build what of a nest they 

 have on the almost flat ledges of these lofty rocks — it 

 may be midway between the base and the top — and as 

 they do not have the protection of the soft encircling 

 walls of nest that most other birds' eggs have, the egg 

 is in form large at the one end and small at the other. 

 Some lay only one egg, others more, and in this case, 

 when one or two of them are laid together, they will 

 not have so much the tendency to roll away. If you 

 try the difference between an ordinary egg and some- 

 thing the shape of the egg of the guillemot, you will 

 find how the eggs are in this respect protected. The 

 sea-bird's egg will much more decidedly roll round 

 within a small circle than will the other, and when you 

 set two or three objects of this form together, the small 

 end inside, as the birds lay them, they will hardly roll 

 away from each other, even though touched. When 

 you have put six or seven of them together in this way, 

 they seem veritably to act as wedges to each other. 



It is quite a business at some parts to go in search of 

 the sea-birds' eggs or young, and many are the adven- 

 tures and the perilous positions in which the searchers 

 have found themselves. The plan, in many cases, is to 

 lower the searcher down by ropes and pulleys to the 

 exact ledge or ledges where the nests are, but so- deter- 

 mined are the old birds, and such onslaughts have they 

 made sometimes on their assailant, both with beak and 

 wing, that they have compelled him to retreat unsuccess- 

 ful ; and there is even record of their having so driven 

 the man in defending himself against the stroke of their 

 wings, that he has lost his balance, and fallen down, to 



