Some who read these pages may, perchance, be stimu- 

 lated by a desire to enlarge their acquaintance with our sea- 

 birds by spending a day at sea in a small row-boat. For 

 choice, one of the larger breeding-stations should be visited. 

 Horn Head, Donegal ; St. Kilda, the SciUy Islands, the 

 Bempton cliffs, Yorkshire ; the Fame Islands, Fowlsheugh, 

 Stonehaven ; the Orkneys, the Shetlands, or the Hebrides, 

 are aU renowned resorts. Here are thrilling sights indeed. 

 Guillemots, razor-bills, and puffins are congregated in swarms, 

 which must be seen to be believed. Few birds are more 

 easy to tell at sight as they scuttle past one on the way down 

 to the water from the cliffs, or returning laden with food for 

 their young. The puffin is easily the most conspicuous, 

 since he flies with his little yeUow legs stuck out on each side 

 of his apology for a tail. And for a further token there is 

 his great red and yellow beak. The guillemot has a sooty- 

 brown head and neck — ^in his breeding dress — slate-grey 

 back and white under parts, and a pointed beak ; while 

 the razor-bill, similarly coloured, is to be distinguished by the 

 narrow white lines down his highly compressed beak. By 

 good fortune, the white-winged black guillemot may be 

 found among the host. His white wings contrasting with 

 the black plumage of the rest of the body, and his red legs, 

 suffice to identify him. 



On the Fame Islands, as well as on the Orkneys and 



105 



