118 Ailsa Craig audits Birds. 



which makes the shaggy coat of a terrier extremely serviceable 

 as a bait. When the young are hatched, they are abundantly 

 supplied with sand eels and sprats, caught by the old birds and 

 brought to the burrows, not singly, but in quantities, Having 

 for many hours at a time watched, I may say, thousands of 

 puffins carrying their prey to the rock, I have been continually 

 puzzled to find out how it was possible for them to bring so 

 many fishes at a time, seven or eight being a common number. 

 They are held by the head, the bodies hanging on each side of 

 the bill; and sometimes I have knocked down a bird while 

 carrying eleven sand eels, five ranged on one side and six on 

 the other. Their mode of catching so many such slippery crea- 

 tures consecutively without mutilating any other part but the 

 head, has not yet been noticed, nor can the singular feat be 

 satisfactorily accounted for. 



Curious varieties of plumage occasionally occur among these 

 birds. I have examined two which were killed by the fowlers 

 a few years ago ; one being of a rich cream colour and spotless, 

 the other as black as a negro. The last named variety is seen 

 upon Ailsa almost every summer, and has an uncommonly 

 ludicrous appearance. 



The solan goose (Sula alba) is not so numerous upon Ailsa 

 as the puffin, but as the number of this species on the Bass 

 Rock has been computed by qualified judges to be from ten to 

 twenty thousand, it is not too much to say that there are at least 

 as many on the craig. When two or three thousand are seen 

 fishing together there could not be a more extraordinary orni- 

 thological spectacle. Early in February they have been observed 

 — many thousands in one flock — off the village of Ballantrae, 

 assembling over a shoal of fishes, and precipitating themselves 

 from a height with a loud splash into the sea in pursuit of their 

 prey ; while 013 t he cast coast, in the month of July, I have seen 

 them in prodigious numbers plunging for herrings in lielhaven 

 Bay within sight of the Bass Rock, their favourite nestling place. 

 Small straggling parties are often seen at some distance from 

 land diving for mackerel and other fish, on which occasions they 



ae times mistake their object and forfeit their lives. In several 

 instances they have been observed returning to Ailsa Craig with 

 a gurnard stioking in their throats, the fish in each case having 

 been caught in the usual manner, and hastily sua II owed head fore- 

 mo I ; ha, :i glimpse of the interior had probably been too much 

 for even a fish's nerves, and had get its hewr on end. I havo 

 examined several dead birds found at the foot of the cliffs, with 



l heir last mouthful BO firmly wedged :is to oblige the use of a 



knife to cut the spines before the fish could be taken out. But 

 a it i on Boft-finned fishes gannets chiefly feed, accidents of this 

 kind are not frequent. Winn a shoal is discovered they soon 



