310 
ALCADiE. 
Accordingly, after going some hundred yards along the edge, we 
began the descent. The smooth short grass rendered our foot- 
ing somewhat insecure, hut with a little care the difficulty was 
overcome, and a few minutes brought us to a rough uneven 
steep, covered with large stones, from beside one of which rose 
a Lesser Black-backed Gull, from three eggs. Presently, after 
passing the slope, I received a wrinkle as to the secrets of the 
so-called road. ]\Iy companion walked to the edge of a large 
mass of rock on which we were standing, told me to wait until 
he was ready to help me, let himself over the rock, and then 
hanging by his arms, di’opped down for several feet. There 
was nothing for it but to put on my boots, which until now 
had been carried on my back, and to follow his example, land- 
ing safely upon a sort of narrow platform ; though, it must be 
owned, I should not have been much inclined to try it had 
there not been a pair of stout arms ready to catch me in case 
of a slip. However, thus fairly in for it, I once more removed 
my boots and followed my companion, in whose safety, it need 
not be said, I now took a most lively interest. The climbing 
was far from easy, but still on we went, now up, now down, 
sometimes passing Herring Gulls’ eggs, sometimes Lesser Black- 
backs’, and once discovering a nest of young Eock Pipits, evi- 
dently hatched about a week. Suddenly a well-known scent — 
none of the sweetest, by the way — made known that the 
GuElemots were at hand, and in a few minutes we were in the 
very thick of them. They sat in rows, eight or ten together, 
sometimes a score or more ; some upon their solitary egg, others 
upon none at all, but most of them so tame that we could have 
knocked them down with a long stick. The ledges upon which 
they were sitting were so whitened that scarcely an inch of the 
rock itself was visible, and the footing was occasionally rendered 
somewhat precarious by the same cause, the rock being so 
slippery. We found the Einged GuiEemot, as well as the corn- 
feet high, which in the main consisted of nothing more than a sequence of 
jirojecting knobs and ledges where the rock was only perpendicular, and did 
not overhang. — E d. 
