512 
president’s address. 
who has a shoot at Loch Inver, sailed up to Scourie in his 
yacht, with his keeper, for the express purpose of seeing how 
many of these egg-stealing culprits they could account for 
with their rifles. In a recent communication to me on the 
subject, he says : “ Our campaign on the Black-backed Gulls 
on Handa was not a very great success ; we accounted at 
that time for about two dozen birds — half being Black-backs, 
the other half Herring Gulls. Later, I sent my keeper to 
kill the young toddler Black-backs on the Stack as they 
hatched out, and he estimates his kill at twenty or so. They 
hid in crevices and inequalities as soon as the firing began. 
Later, in August and September, I kept up a pretty constant 
offensive from a boat round Loch Inver, and got about 260 
altogether. A few of these were Great Black-backed Gulls, 
more the Lesser Black-backed ; a good many were Herring 
Gulls, who are just as evilly disposed, and a large number 
were Gulls in immature plumage which were either Herring 
Gulls or Black-backs — quite a number, from their size, being 
the Greater Black- backs. My keeper writes, there are now 
(Feb. 15th, 1908) very few Black-backs to be seen anywhere, 
but of course it isn’t the weather for boating, and unless 
you boat you won’t see much any way.” 
Rissa tridactyla (Ivittiwake), There is a very large 
colony of these birds on Handa during the breeding season, 
and much of the charm inseparable from the cliffs is, to my 
mind, due to the presence of these beautiful birds. Their 
graceful, slow-winged, sinuous flight shows up to great 
advantage as compared with the rapid-winged whirr of the 
Guillemots and Razor-bills, who take a bee line from the sea 
to their egg ; and after one has been watching for a time, 
this continuous flight of thousands of birds to and fro the 
cliffs, it is with a sense of some relief that one suddenly 
realises that it is only one’s head that is hanging over the edge 
after all, and that the remainder of one’s body is still resting 
securely on the top of the island. 
