THE PUFFIN. 
311 
moil siiecies, and took especial pains to keep tlie eggs of tlie two 
separate. After some time spent among the Guillemots, we 
gained a grassy platform a little farther down, where there 
was a small stream of water, and here we got our lunch, and I 
blew and packed the eggs at leisure, — processes which kept me 
employed fully a couple of hours — with the most glorious pros- 
pect spread out beneath. Just as one was beginning to let the 
mind drift away into dreamland, in so strangely wild and pic- 
turesque a scene, my worthy guide, who had been absent for 
some time, reappeared with his shirt full of eggs, putting a 
summary stop to meditation. The poor fellow almost keeps 
his family on eggs during the summer, therefore I could not 
blame him ; besides, though to be sure I seldom, if it can pos- 
sibly be avoided, take all the eggs of one nest, conscience made 
it needful to admit that one was coming home pretty well 
laden oneself. After this we ascended to the Puffins’ holes in 
the cliffs above, and here was the most ticklish climbing of all, 
on account of the rottenness of the earth, and stones, which 
crumbled aw^ay as they were touched, but, for all that, we con- 
trived to procure as many eggs as we wanted. Some of the holes 
were not more than eighteen inches in depth, others so deep 
that the eggs were beyond our reach^ and others, again, wind- 
ing upwards or dowmwards, to the right or to the left. In some 
instances there were two entrances to one nest; but this seems 
only to be the case where, the face of the cliff being irregular, 
a new^ burrow happens to strike the course of an old one. Occa- 
sionally the eggs were deposited upon grass, or down, or 
feathers, but not a few were upon bare earth. They were, as 
usual, dull white, with very faint spots of grey and brown ; 
but several were so stained by the damp earth as to be quite 
of a rusty colour. Eabbits were tolerably abundant in the 
cliffs, therefore I had no cause to doubt my companion’s asser- 
tion that Puffins wdll often seize upon the burrows of those 
animals ; but for the most part the holes are dug by the birds 
themselves — a work, by the w^ay, I have seen both sexes en- 
gaged in. Before introducing my hand into the holes I took the 
