i66 
ALLEN’S naturalist’s LIBRARY. 
liberty, seeming quite dazed, and was only too easily retaken. 
Again It was thrown up, and again it blundered, like an owl 
exposed to the noonday sun, only much worse. We found 
others, one of which I brought home alive ; they all behaved 
m the same helpless way. We found their eggs, pure white 
and very like the Puffin’s, but without its obscure maculation 
These birds are_ so nocturnal in their habits that persons 
familiar with the island by daylight only might live surrounded 
by them and not suspect their presence. At night they come 
out and are active enough, It is then that their singular weird 
cry IS uttered (why is the sea-bird’s cry always melancholy?). 
I heard it as T lay awake in the tent. There was no noise of 
wings, no evidence of living, when a ghostly voice said in 
plaintive key, as of one who wept, ‘Cuckolds in a row,’ with 
distinctcst articulation ; and again, as distance softened down 
Its grief, ‘Cuckolds in a row,’ until, still further off, was echoed 
back, as if it passed some door that closed behind, ‘ Cuckolds 
in a row.’ ” 
Nest.— Saxby writes “ In most cases, something of a nest 
is made with jheces of dead plants or hay, but sometimes the 
bare soil is thought sufficient. It now and then happens that 
the nest is made far back in the deep crevice of a rock Some 
have asserted that the Shearwater lays only once in the season 
but my own observations lead me to the conclusion that a 
second laying does take place; the bird, however, not pro- 
ducing a new egg-it lays but one— immediately on bein- 
robbed of the first, but waiting until the regular time, some 
weeks later, when it lyill either use the old burrow, to which 
It has returned occasionally in the interval, or will dig a new 
one. After the egg has been taken the bird will often remain 
m the nest for several days before finally resolving to quit. 
1 he young bird will keep on the nest until long after it is fully 
fledged, and in such circumstances becomes enormously fat, 
and IS thought a dainty by the fishermen, who eat it with much 
relish.” 
Eggs.— One, white. Axis, 2-3-265 inches; diam., 
175- 
'■55- 
