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GUILLEMOTS' EGGS. 
unattached, as on the palm of an outstretched hand. Nine, ten, or even 
twelve old guillemots were sometimes seen in a line, and so near to 
each other that their wings seemed almost to touch ; when they flew 
away, disturbed, as many eggs were visible as there had previously 
been birds sitting on the ledge. 
The greatest variety of size and colour imaginable obtains among 
the eggs. Some are small, others large ; some nearly round, others 
tapering to a point at one end. Some are green, or streaked and 
blotched with black ; others blotched and streaked with a light brown 
on a ground of milky white. In fact, as Mr. Waterton remarks, and 
as everybody who has seen guillemots' eggs well knows. Nature has 
introduced into the colouring of their shells such an endless inter- 
mixture of brown, white, green, yellow, and black, that only an artist 
can give an idea of the beautiful tints and shadings and combinations. 
The rock-climbers, says Waterton, assert that the guillemot, when 
undisturbed, lays only a single egg ; but if that be taken away, she 
lays another; and if that too be removed, she produces a third; and so 
on. On dissecting a female guillemot, a knot of eggs is found within 
her ; and the rock-climbers say that she can retain or produce these 
birds, according to circumstances. They also assert that when the 
young guillemot attains a certain size it manages to climb upon the 
back of the old bird, which carries it down to the ocean. That this 
statement is true may well be believed, as old swans may frequently 
be seen sailing to and fro with their cygnets nestled among their downy 
plumage. 
THE WILD SWAN. 
We must not leave the water-birds and the Northern seas without 
taking note of the wild swans, the migration of which to more tem- 
perate climes is one of the most remarkable facts in Natural History. 
These elegant birds, the very types of grace of form and motion, gather 
about the lakes and rivers of the sub- Arctic region in September ; and 
in the following month, in flocks of from twenty to thirty, they mount 
high into the aii", with hoarse screams of intelligence, and forming a 
dense phalanx, wing their way with wonderful swiftness — Lloyd says 
at the rate of one hundred miles an hour — to the sunnier and more 
