1911-12.] Body Temperature of Diving and Swimming Birds. 25 
from the water a few seconds afterwards, when a half-minute clinical 
thermometer (Kew certificate) was introduced into the rectum to the depth 
of three inches, and at the end of three minutes the temperature was 
recorded. Three or four thermometers were carried, so that in the event of 
several birds being killed at the same time there should be no delay in 
taking the temperature. The temperature of the air and of the sea at the 
surface was also recorded. 
Unlike the shag and cormorant, the guillemot almost always seeks 
safety by diving. It is not difficult to approach, but it has such keen sight 
and is so quick in its movements that it frequently “ dives at the flash,” as 
the boatmen express it ; that is, after seeing the flash of the gunpowder it 
can vanish below the surface of the water before the shot has reached 
the spot where it was. This is particularly true of the black guillemot 
or tystie. 
Most of the sea-gulls were shot while flying, since they search for food 
and feed mainly on the wing. Their flight is so easy, however, that it does 
not appear to involve great muscular effort, and a gull on the wing is 
probably not doing more work than a shag or guillemot swimming and 
diving, which is really equivalent to flying under the water, since both 
wings and feet are used. 
The solan geese were examined alive, as these birds are protected in the 
breeding season by the Wild Birds Protection Act, and the shooting of 
them is illegal. One was taken in the Orkneys on a calm day in the end 
of September 1907. It was not able, in the absence of wind, to raise flight 
from the water, and was captured after a short row. This was a young 
specimen, hatched probably in May. 
The other six were taken off their nests on the Bass Rock, June 24, 
1908. During incubation and while taking care of her young the gannet 
is very tame, and will sit on the nest till lifted from it. One of the assistant 
lighthouse-keepers, at considerable risk, descended the cliff on the east side 
of the Bass by means of a rope, and succeeded in securing six birds, taking 
them off their nests and bringing them to the top of the crag one by one, 
where the rectal temperature was taken by the writer. The temperature 
of an incubating bird is somewhat below the normal, but this is not the 
case after the eggs have been hatched. 
One would have expected that it would be a difficult task to hold these 
powerful birds while the thermometer was being introduced into the rectum 
and the temperature recorded, but as a matter of fact they scarcely made 
any effort to escape ; they seemed dazed and stupefied all the while, and 
the whole procedure was carried out without any assistance. The specimen 
