Ornithological Observations and Reflections in Shetland. 371 
Some sheep, now, come down over the rocks, and begin to 
feed on the seaweed, thereby discommoding the Gulls. The 
latter are not frightened, but have to avoid them, and walk 
about with an offended look, seeming much annoyed. It is 
a curious ousting. One is accustomed to see Gulls inland 
amidst sheep and kine, but this reversal of the position is less 
familiar, and much more picturesque. The sheep evidently 
like their seaweed quite fresh from the sea. They pay no 
attention to it where it lies exposed, but, bending their heads 
over the water, take it, as it is left by the receding wave. When 
the wave comes in again, they avoid it in a very nonchalent 
manner, and often have their noses well under water before 
turning their heads aside. It is the long brown seaweed that 
they like, and pleasant it is to see a long streamer of it hanging, 
wet and shiny, from their mouths as they munch. Whilst one 
watches these sheep, thus browsing the seaweed, one or other 
of them will often have the head and legs completely hidden by 
the rocks. The hallucination is then produced that it is not a 
sheep at all, but a Polar Bear one is looking at, for the white 
body looks just like one, and the marine setting, though not of 
an arctic character, seems much more appropriate to Polar 
Bears than to sheep, with which creatures, till one has become 
familiar with this phase of their character, it has no associations. 
After a time, however, the novelty goes, and, with it, the Polar 
Bears. 
Sheep in the Shetlands are very fond of browsing on seaweed. 
They come down the descendable places of the cliffs — which 
are not very many — and walk right out on the rocks, bad as 
they are here to walk on. But they do not do these things 
with impunity. Here and there a carcass lies rotting to show 
that they sometimes pay for their temerity with their lives, and 
I have myself assisted at the capture, by boat, of a sheep that 
had got on to a narrow ledge of rock, only a few feet above 
the sea level, at the mouth of one of the numerous caverns that 
there are here, and was unable to get off again. 
Examination of the rocks where the Gulls have been feeding, 
shows that they often pull off one valve of the larger mussels, 
leaving the other one empty, and hanging to the rock. These 
Herring Gulls fly in pairs, one sweeping to the other from a dis- 
tance, and greeting it with wailing cry. If in pairs now, why not 
throughout the winter ? I have no doubt they mate for life. 
Oct. 5th. — Rock Doves roost in caverns made by the sea, 
which are never dry even at low tide. They seem to be very 
wary, feeding on the croft -lands in the early morning only, or on 
wet afternoons, when not likely to be disturbed. They often 
assemble on the grass above the entrance to their caves — for 
at their mouths these may be lofty — and apparently feed there, 
as they keep pecking about. Thus on any alarm they can either 
1914 Dec. 1. 
