THE FOOLISH GUILLEMOT. 
257 
fore part of the upper neck tinged with brown ; the lower 
parts are white, the sides being streaked with black. In 
summer the whole head and throat are brown ; in winter 
the sides of the head, behind the eyes and throat, are wliite. 
Why this bird has been called the Foolish Guillemot we 
have been unable to discover. It certainly does not look 
very wise as it sits, almost bolt upright, on a ledge of rock 
above the roaring and foaming sea, keeping warm, or en- 
deavouring to do so, its single egg, which it seems that the 
slightest movement would precipitate into the watery gulf 
beneath. One is tempted to wonder why it did not choose 
some more safe and sheltered spot for the work of incu- 
bation. But doubtless He who conveyed to the bird its 
instinctive knowledge has ordered this, like all other 
things, wisely and well. Eusticus says : — 
The Guillemot, or Willock, as it is here caUed, sits with its egg 
under its wing or pressed to one side of its breast, and always on the 
same side, so that a mark on the breast of the bird plainly shows the 
situation of the egg whilst she is sitting. After the day when the 
egg is laid it is very rarely left, and it is only for this one day that 
the collectors have much chance of getting it. They tell you that 
when the bird has once begun sitting, she will never suffer herself to 
be robbed ; but that when all chance of saving the egg is gone, she 
rolls it off the ledge, and flies away. This story is partly true, but 
there is some doubt whether she acts on the true dog-in-the-manger 
system of smashing her egg because no one else shall have it ; its 
position is so ticklish that, when the bird is forced to take flight to 
avoid capture, she may very easily upset her charge, and pitch it over 
the precipice, in the mere flurry attendant on the act of self-preser- 
vation. 
Man is not the only robber this poor bird has to fear. The Gulls 
and Eavens are ever on the alert to secure her eggs. This is horrid 
unkind of neighbours, but perhaps not inconsistent with our own 
practice. The Gulls are for ever scanning the face of the cliff, hoping 
to catch a ghmpse of an unprotected egg. Directly a Gull has found 
one, he charges point blank at its small end, using his head as a 
lance ; the huge egg, thus pierced, sticks on his beak, and he flies 
away as though he was carrying a great pear in front of his head. 
In this way he sucks out all the goodness while on the wing, and 
drops the shell when empty. These shells, with a great hole at one 
end, may often be found upon the downs above, and naturalists 
profoundly assert that stoats and weasels are the aggressors, thus 
assigning to those lithesome quadrupeds a marvellous extent of cliff- 
scaling capability. 
