SPREAD OF THE FULMAR. 87 



somewhat. My first endeavours to get at the nesting 

 ledges were unsuccessful, as after descending some 20 feet 

 by the aid of a rope, and getting within a dozen feet or 

 so of some sitting birds, I had to abandon the attempt 

 owing to the overhanging nature of the cliff, and the very 

 loose, crumbly character of the foothold, portions of the 

 rock being detached at almost every step. It was what a 

 Shetlander would call a very " rotten bank." The birds 

 sat very close, and were with difficulty got to stir except 

 when a missile lit almost on them. The following day, 

 however, finding some occupied ledges some 25 feet below 

 the top of one of the stacks where the rock face was 

 perfectly firm, I was able to descend with a rope without 

 difficulty, and obtained several eggs. The birds did not 

 sit quite so close as those I had endeavoured to get at the 

 previous day, but I observed one of them remain at her 

 post until my companion got within about 10 feet of her, 

 when, before leaving, she twice ejected from her mouth 

 for a distance of two or three feet the thin amber-coloured, 

 oily liquid, which the bird is well known to part with 

 under these circumstances. The liquid, I may observe, 

 was ejected from the throat, after the fashion of a regurgi- 

 tation, and not squirted through the nostrils, as the older 

 authors asserted. The other birds, however, on this set of 

 ledges took their departure without going through this 

 performance. The eggs were laid on broad ledges, which 

 were covered with a coarse, sandy detritus and small, flat 

 flakes of stone, which had fallen down from the rocks 

 above. There was not the smallest trace of a nest, and 

 there was merely the very shallowest depression on the 

 sandy detritus on which the single egg rested. The egg, 

 indeed, lay as open and exposed as a Guillemot's on its 

 rocky ledge, and the choosing by the bird of ledges covered 

 with this coarse detritus had probably a relation to the 



