THE BIRDS OF PAPA STOUR. l3i 



and stood beside him on the top. The sight to an ornithologist 

 was worth the climb. From out the hollows between the 

 luxuriant grass tussocks, uncropped since the world began by 

 the hungry teeth of the Shetland sheep, swarms of Lesser 

 Black-backed Gulls were rising, while all around, with hoarse 

 deep bark and threatening swoop of his wide pinions, Larus 

 marinus showed his displeasure at our intrusion, and in threes 

 and fours the heavy Eider Ducks fluttered off their downy nests, 

 and disappeared over the edge of the stack. I paid no attention 

 to these, however, but at once proceeded to hunt for the Manx 

 Shearwater. 



The summit of the stack is about three acres in extent, roughly 

 bean-shaped, with the concavity towards the north. It slopes 

 gently up from S. to N. The vegetation is of extraordinary 

 luxuriance, many of the grass tussocks rising to the height of 

 two feet, with deep hollows covered over with tangled herbage 

 lying between. The bladder campion was especially rank. These 

 hollows I now explored for the Shearwater, but without success. 

 Many promising-looking tunnels I found led a foot or so in to 

 the nests of the Eider, with its three, four, or five eggs, most 

 of them apparently incubated, while the more open hollows 

 very frequently contained nests of L. fuscus with eggs or newly- 

 hatched young. 



After a long and careful search I failed to find a single 

 genuine burrow, and not a trace of any such bird as the Manx 

 Shearwater was to be seen or smelled. Nor does the bird nest 

 upon the sides of the stack, for these are of solid rock, so smooth 

 and perpendicular that a few Guillemots, Razorbills, Shags, and 

 Kittiwakes can barely find foothold. 



Thus, despite Low's account and the name of the stack 

 itself, no Lyries now breed here. The colony of L. marinus, 

 " Swabie " as it is called, is, however, a very fine one, — by far the 

 largest in Shetland, with the exception of that upon the totally 

 inaccessible "Holm of Noss" near Lerwick. I counted twelve 

 nests of this fine bird (nearly all with three eggs) placed at inter- 

 vals of a few yards in a row along the N.W. edge of the stack ; 

 there were about as many on the N.E. ridge, and several others 

 scattered over the stack. 



L. fuscus is much more numerous, — about ten or twelve pairs 

 of the smaller to each of the larger kind. 



