24? ON THE LESSER GUILLEMOT 
able. Two old Guillemots were confined in a cage for a 
fortnight, in endeavouring to domesticate them : during the 
whole time they obstinately refused all food ; and when I 
released them to their native element, they seemed little 
changed, but in weight. One was a little weaker than the 
other ; and it was interesting to observe the care and ten- 
derness with which it was regarded by its more vigorous 
companion : when it was unable to keep up with him, he 
would occasionally turn back, swimming round it, and ap- 
parently encouraging it by sounds and gestures to proceed 
beyond the reach of danger. 
They are often observed to swim long after being shot 
through the heart : if the lungs, however, are wounded, 
they are unable to continue under water. The more speedy 
way of depriving them of sensation and life is by a sudden 
and violent concussion of the whole body. 
It seems almost impossible to tame the old birds ; in» 
deed this is no unusual case, where birds naturally familiar 
in the wild state, or easy of domestication in the young, are 
incapable of it when in the old. 
From their breeding, for the most part, in situations of 
tolerably easy access, so much devastation is annually com- 
mitted by the fishermen among old birds, eggs, and young, 
that their number seems progressively diminishing ; and it 
is to be regretted that the proprietors do not exert them- 
selves to limit this abuse. It is not as it was formerly in 
Zetland, and still is in some remote islands, when sea-fowl 
constituted a regular and necessary article of subsistence. 
The fishermen never trust to them for this use, and the 
most experienced and adventurous climbers are often the 
most indigent ; besides, it is only the inhabitants of a few- 
districts, that, from their vicinity to the haunts of sea-fowl, 
can practise their annual depredations, and they arc ob- 
served to be certainly not more substantial than their 
