298. THE ZOOLOGIST. 



small space, all on the bare rock, without any sort of concealment 

 except, perhaps, a solitary tuft of grass ; others were placed at 

 the bottom of low walls more or less concealed by rank vegeta- 

 tion, some on narrow ledges of rock hidden in wiry grasses, 

 many also amongst the plants of campion and thrift. They are 

 all thickly lined with a dusky-brown down full of white specks, 

 which is gradually added to by the sitting bird from her under- 

 pays during incubation. This is the eider-down of commerce ; 

 it is very elastic, and a quantity which, when loose, would fill a 

 top-hat, can be compressed in the hand. A pound and a half is 

 said to be sufficient to make a quilt. Usually four to six eggs 

 are laid ; we have seen seven and heard of nine in one nest. 



Considering how impatient of approach Eiders are at sea after 

 the nesting season, their tameness when sitting on eggs is remark- 

 able, allowing themselves to be photographed at the distance of a 

 few feet ; one on a nest, at the base of St. Cuthbert's Tower, 

 permitted our boys to stroke her on the back without showing 

 any inclination to leave. The colour of the female Eider is to a 

 considerable extent protective. One of the photographs taken by 

 our party on Staple Island was a bank of bell-campion in flower; 

 since our return we have discovered in the picture an Eider 

 sitting, not observed at the time of taking. 



Leaving the Longstone, we pass the Harcar Eocks, now 

 covered with Gulls and other seafowl. On the calmest days the 

 tide runs like a milhace between the islands, and swirls and 

 twists in great circles and rings like miniature maelstroms above 

 hidden rocks and shoals. In strong weather no boat could live 

 in these narrow wind-swept guts and straits. It was here, on the 

 western point of Big Harcar, that the steamship * Forfarshire,' 

 with sixty-three hands and passengers, drifted helplessly from the 

 north in a great gale on the morning of September 7th, 1838, and 

 broke her back, the hinder part sinking in deep water. At break 

 of day the survivors, nine altogether, were rescued by the heroine 

 of the Fame Islands, " Grace Darling," and her aged father, 

 then light-keeper on the Longstone. Here on the very spot, 

 how well can we realise the desperate risk and almost hopeless- 

 ness of the undertaking — 



"When, as tho day broke, the maid through misty air 

 Espied far off a wreck amid the surf, 

 Beating on one of those disastrous isles — 

 Half of a vessel, half— the rest 

 Had vanished." 



