330 
VERTEBRATA. 
The Common Auk or Razor-Bill — the Ifurre of the English Cyclopedia of Natural History 
— A. iorda, is fifteen inches long; lays 
one egg the size of that of a turkey. Its 
wings are tolerably well developed, and 
are nsed for flight, as well as for pro- 
gression Avhen the bird is under water. 
It swarms in the hi^h remons of the At- 
lantic and Pacific, and is common along 
g-- the rocky coasts of Great Britain. Ray 
says : " It lays, sits, and brings up its 
^ yoiing on the ledges of the craggy cliffs 
iS^ and steep rocks by the sea-shores, that 
^ _ are broken and divided into many, as it 
fw?: were, stairs or shelves, together with the 
coulter-nebs and guillemots. TheManks- 
men are wont to compare these rocks, 
with the birds sitting upon th em in breed- 
P ing time, to an apothecary's shop — the 
ledges of the rocks resemblingthe shelves, 
and the birds the pots. About the Isle 
of Man are verv hio-h cliffs broken in this 
manner into many ledges, one above an- 
other, from top to bottom. They are wont 
to let down men by ropes from the tops of 
the clifi"s to take aw^ay the eggs and young ones. They take also the birds themselves when they 
are sitting upon their eggs, with snares fastened to the ends of long -poles, and put about the 
necks of the birds. They build no nests, but lay their eggs upon the bare rocks." 
The gathering of the eggs of sea-fowl, as well as the birds themselves for their feathers, along 
the steepling rocks of the Hebrides, the Shetlands, and the 0]-kneys, and other places around the 
British Islands, in which the adventurous fowlers are swung over the cliffs, five hundred or a thou- 
sand feet above the waA'es, has often been described as one of the most perilous of human pursuits. 
Nuttall, speaking of the multitudes of auks on the Isle of Wight, says: "The eggs being es- 
teemed a delicacy, particularly for salads, the fishermen and other indigent and adventurous 
inhabitants traverse the precipices in search of them. Some of these stupendous cliffs are six 
hundred feet above the yawnaing deep which lashes and frets them into gloomy caverns. Seaward 
they present ruo-gcd and deeply indented cliffs, on whose rude shelvings and ledges the birds ar- 
range themselves by thousands, and without further preparation lay their eggs, which lie as it 
were strewed without precaution by hundreds in a row, no way attached or defended by the 
rocks, so that in a gale of wind whole ranks of them are swept into the sea. To these otherwise 
inaccessible deposits, the dauntless fowlers ascend, and passing intrepidly from rock to rock, col- 
lect the eggs, and descend Avith the same indifference. In most places, however, the attempt is 
made from above. The adventurer is let down from the slope contiguous to the brink of the 
cliff by a rope, sustained by a single assistant, who, lowering his companion, depends on his per- 
sonal strength alone to support him, wdiich, if failing, the fowler is dashed to pieces, or drowned 
in the sea which roars and heaves below." 
A similar scene near the coast of Dover is thus graphically described by Shakspeare : 
TUB ARCTIC PUFFIN. 
-How fearful 
And dizzy 'tis to cast one's eyes so low ! 
The crows and choughs that wing the midway air 
Show scarce so gross as beetles ! Half way down 
Hangs one that gathers samphire, dreadful trade! 
Methinks he seems no bigger than his head ; 
The fishermen that walk npon the beach 
Appear like mice; and yon tall anchoring bark 
Diminished to her cock ; her cock a buoy 
Almost too small for sight. The murmuring surge, 
That on the unnumber'd idle pebbles chafes, 
Cannot be heard so high. I'll look no more, 
Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight 
Topple down headlong." 
The Little Auk, A. alle of Linnseus, Mergulus melanoleucos of Ray, is ten inches long, and in- 
