ClAEKE : BlED-LlFE AT THE FaENE IsLANDS. 



85 



cliampagne bottles ; they soon after took fliglit, and we had to make 

 all haste to the nests to anticipate the gulls, ever ready to pounce 

 down upon exposed eggs. The stench from the nests and the dung 

 of the birds was already considerable, but nothing to what it would 

 be when incubation has advanced, when it becomes unbearable. This 

 year (1877) the cormorants again wished to take up their old 

 quarters, but the gulls objected, and their numbers prevailing, the 

 cormorants had to retire to their companions on the Megstone, which 

 has been their station from of old. Every egg from this colony on 

 the ]\Iegstone had been taken by some scoundrels from the mainland, 

 and as the season was then advanced, it is tolerably certain that the 

 Fames in 1877 did not contribute to the numbers of this species. 



The Brownsman Island is the home of numbers of gulls and the 

 smaller terns. Eiders are, perhaps, more numerous on this island than 

 elsewhere in the group ; under the old wall, in front of the keeper's 

 house and the old buildings, is a favourite haunt of the bird, which 

 at this season becomes remarkably tame, allowing an approach to 

 within a couple of feet of the nest without showing the least sign of 

 alarm, and many may even be stroked as they sit on the nest. The 

 nests on this island are chiefly placed amongst nettles and other 

 herbage. Xumerous eider drakes in their handsome black-and-white 

 plumage were floating peacefully on the sea or resting on the rocks 

 at the water's edge. The duck, in her sober brown and grey dress, 

 is a great contrast to her lord. Both are heavily built birds, weighing 

 some six pounds, and have massive heads. On this island we obtained 

 two nests, with eggs, of the rock pipit, a species not uncommon here. 

 The nest, which is placed on the ground, is a rather loose structure 

 of dry grasses. 



Staples Island is chiefly attractive on account of its being adjacent 

 to the ''Pinnacles," a stack of three isolated basaltic columns about 

 forty feet high, which lie only a few yards, perhaps ten, off it. To 

 stand on this island, opposite to, and on a level with the tops of the 

 Pinnacles is one of the sights of the Fames ■ the flat summits of 

 these columns are the only breeding-places offered by the islands at all 

 suited to the requirements of the gnillemot. Here they sit perfectly 

 upright, and huddled together as closely as possible. The eggs are 

 almost as thickly laid, and so crowded that when the birds take flight 

 in a body, they are accompanied by a shower of their eggs. When 

 thus uncovered the eggs, especially the intense blue-green ones, have 

 a very beatitiful appearance as they lay on a surface perfectly whitened 

 with the dung of the l)irds. The Pinnacles can r)nly be approached 



