S 8 
NATURE NOTES. 
razorbills, gannets, and even Solan geese. The Graphic corres- 
pondent was one of a peaceful party of naturalists and artists, 
like that which Mr. Harvey Gibson describes in his article on 
“ A Naturalist’s Whitsuntide Holiday,” in this month’s Nature 
Notes, and he was especially struck with the tameness of the 
birds, and their fearlessness of the human species. Of the events 
that befell we must give his own admirable description : — 
“ Every one of the hundred ledges of the orange-lichen covered 
rocks had its row or crowd of comical puffins watching our every 
movement and, when one of us was alone, appearing at the door 
of the tent ; even the gannets, shy as they are, except at breed- 
ing time, no longer rose from their nest even at our near 
approach ; indeed, when sketching, they would allow me to 
come as near to them as an artist usually is to his model. On 
Whit Monday morning I took my book to make a few quite 
close studies. As I quietly passed towards them, slowly and 
without any quick gesture, they permitted me to sit down among 
them and open my book with as little notice as if I were a 
comrade. Delighted with this foretasting of the millennium, I 
sat and made several outlines, which I forward, until suddenly 
I heard the crack of a rifle, and thought something impinged on 
a crag below. Then I became aware that one of H.M. sub- 
marine miners’ steamers, named ‘ Sir Richard Fletcher,’ had 
hove to beside the cliffs, and that some grey-clad young men 
aboard were indulging in the insensate practice of shooting at 
the beautiful birds whose snowy plumage offered so clear a mark. 
“ Presently some six young men landed, and, with the boat’s 
crew, dispersed over the island, began shooting puffins and 
gulls. The noise and motion soon dispersed the gannets, which 
fled to sea, upon which some were soon floating dead. On re- 
turning over the island in the afternoon, I came upon one of the 
most brutal scenes I have ever witnessed. The gannet eyries 
were empty of their innocent population, and, as I sat by one, I 
saw above me the sailors hunting out the puffins from their holes, 
and killing them with sticks, while three men, in the costume 
and with the accent of gentlemen, were wandering along the 
ledges of the eyrie, taking the eggs of the gannets from every 
nest ; and, not only so, but one man was taking egg after egg, 
not with any purpose of preservation, but simply flinging them 
as fast as he could gather them over the cliff, to smash upon the 
rocks below — a most wanton act, w’hen it is remembered that 
the gannet only lays one egg. I saw him fling many, then I 
began to count, and before leaving, he flung over more than 
thirty, being about a third of the whole number originally upon 
that rock. The other rock had been despoiled completely before 
my arrival. I should have thought the man a maniac were it 
not that his companions were looking on, apparently with com- 
placency, at his doings. 
“ When after the * Sir Richard Fletcher ’ had sailed I visited 
the gannets’ quarters, I found that of 200 nests within reach 
only two retained their eggs. The eyries are, for the present, 
