After they had fought and argued, argued and fought, alternately, over the nuitter for several minutes, they effected a tem})orary reconciliation and lay on their sides quite still. Presently the other Puffins came back, and alighting, looked on in gaping wonderment, everyone, howevei", taking flight in the most preci})itate manner directly either of the entangled birds stirred.

In a little while two more Tammy Nories Ijecame fast, and fought with their companions in misfortune precisely as these had done with each other.

Finlay Gillies stepped along the crag, and sitting-down upon one of the stones securing the siuire with as much, and probably far more, com})()sure histhan he would have shown in a studio—had portrait taken, along with that of the birds he had secured, in a position fi-om which the slightest slip would have meant a headlong plunge of five hundred feet into the ocean below. Some idea nuiy be gathered of the nature of tlu^ ])laco when it is stated that the j)hotographer had to be held securely by a rope whilst making the study.

Two of the J'uffins were secured by l)oth lefi'S,

FINLAY GILLIES CATCHING PUFFINS.

one by a leg and its neck, and another by one

leg only.

Each piece of rope

carries ahout forty snares

upon it, and seven or

eight Puffins are sometimes

caught at a single haul. In

Martin's time the natives

caught forty or fifty birds

a day with a snare, but one

woman has been knowm recently to kill as many as

two hundred and eighty,

and another one hundred

and twenty-seven in three

liours.

In former days these

snares must have been made

very much stronger than

they are now and fastened

down with extraordinary

security, if we are to be

lieve a story recorded by

our old friend Martin, on

the authority of the folks

who lived at the time he

visited St. Kilda. A fowler

whilst setting one of these

snares accidentally got one

of his toes entangled in a

noose, and l)eing thereby

tripped to a fall went over

the edge of a precipice, and

spent the following night

hanging upside down with

PUFFIN GIN. notliinji' but one liiindrcd

and twenty feet of thin air betwixt himself and the sea below. The snare, it is pleasant to relate, proved equal to the strain; and such was the endurance of the fowler that he was recovered alive, and lived for many a day to tell the tale of his remarkable adventure. Some idea may be gathered of the plenitude of Puffin life at St. Kilda when it is stated, on the authority of Mr. Sands, who lived there for about nine months, that in one year alone close upon ninety thousand birds of this species were killed by the natives. They are plucked, split open like kippers, cured, and hung up to dry on strings stretched across the cottages; and whenever a native feels hungry he simply pulls one down from the line, flings it on the fire to grill, and forthwith has his lunch without the aid of knife, fork, plate, or napkin.

Soa excelled everything we had ever seen in the whole of our wanderings in the j^rodigality of its bird -life. Puffins simply swarmed in the air above it, on the rocks and earth of which it is composed, and dotted the sea all round as far as the powers of a pair of good field-glasses could make them out. Those on the wing twirled round and round in a great cloud that perceptibly interfered with the light of day as it passed over us. The swish (jf their wings made a continuous buzz, and a stone thrown across the path of their flight could not have failed to bring down one or more victims. The whole scene simply beggared description, and the parasites that fell off the birds as they flew over us swarmed on our caps and jackets, a few of them finding more succulent quarters, much to our discomfort and annoyance. Whilst I was watching the Puffin gin in operation our friend Mackenzie discovered a brood of

}'oung Wrens liopi)inp^ in and out amongst tho great boulders of rock, and we all gave chase with the idea of capturing one of them in order that my brother might photograph it. We were no match, however, for the sharp little fellows, who dodged about through holes and crevices with tantalising ease and swiftness. Whilst making a desperate rush after one, caj) in hand, and all too unheedful of the obstacles lying in my path, I struck the toes of my bootless left foot against a thin slab of earthfast stone, which stood edge-on and straight up. My second toe gave a tremendous crack, which was heard by one of the boys several }'ards away, and I felt a stinging pain that turned me quite sick, and compelled me to sit down to sweat and bite my lips in sheer agony. Luckily it was a toe on my already and long since injured leg that was hurt, and after the sickness had passed off a little I resumed the chase on one foot and two hands, and in a shoi-t while actually succeeded in capturing a Wren. It happened in this way. I saw the bird go into what ijroved to be a small cave, and when I peeped inside discovered it sitting at the bottom of an inclined plane of black wet peat three or four yards in. I began to scjueeze my way through the mouth of the cave, but being somewhat ample about the shoulders I had considerable difficulty in passing in. No sooner had 1 got the most ponderous part of my anatomy through than my hands slipped on the slimy peat, and I slid helplessly to the bottom of the cave. Nevertheless, I kept my eye on the Wren, and had the good fcu'tune to secure it in a, dark nook, fi-om which therti was no escape for the little creature. The difficulty was now to get out of the dank, l)eculiar-smelling i)lace; for eveiy time I i)lac('d a

knee on the peat I slipped back as if I had l)een attempting to climb a steep hillside composed of soft-surfaced butter, I was so afraid of injuring my wee captive, which I held in my right hand, that I only used my elbow to assist me in climbing up the l)ank. After two or three attempts I managed to crawl high enough to hand the Wren to my brother. On finally emerging I was smothered with peat. Every button on my waistcoat had scraped up its quantum, and the links of my watch-chain were filled with the evil -smelling stuff.

A hundred feet or so below the place where we captured the young AYren we could see several Fulmar Petrels sitting on their eggs, and my brother determined to go down after a picture. By following a ledge for some distance, and then carefully working his way down crevices, with his face to the cliff and his camera held by a strap which he in the samegripped firmly betwixt his teeth—much way a Fox is said to carry a heavy Goose to his lair—-he got near to one bird. During the time occupied by his descent I was lying on a spur of rock at full length intently watching through my binoculars the bird he was making for. When he got pretty close up to her, I saw the Fulmar squirt a quantity of amber-coloured oil at him. It travelled three or four feet, describing a kind of half-circle and falling short of the mark.

As the photographer got nearer and commenced to fix up his apparatus amongst some huge boulders, I noticed the bird moving her head and neck rapidly up and down as if trying to remove some obstacle from her throat. In less than two minutes she again ejected a quantity of oil, and as my brother had actually crept within a yard of her, with much greater j^recision and effect. Some of the oil landed I 2

on the jacket-sleeve of his right arm. He took one or two photographs of this individual bird at very close range, but, unfortunately, they turned out to be failures on account of her having stirred slightlv whilst the plate was exposed.

I believe that Fulmar Petrels are popularly supposed to squirt oil at their enemies from their tubular nostrils, but this is certaiidy not the rule. We saw it ejected from the throat somewhat in the form of a vigorous expectoration, and according to our observation it is not propelled to nearly the distance stated in some ornithological works. It is surprising to find that one authority who visited the rocks and studied the species say he never saw the bird squirt oil at its enemies. We saw this done several times at dogs when they approached the more accessible nooks MARTINS FULMAR. and ledges on which l)irds were brooding. Again the same observer records that '' the Fulmar breeds on the face of the highest precipices, and only on such as are furnished with small grassy shelves." We rej^eatedly found eggs on shelves and in corners where there was not a single blade of grass alive or dead; the nest, if such it could by any stretch of courtes" be called, simply consisting of a slight hollow lined with pebbles and rock clappings, and in some cases of a shallow declivity in tlic })are peat without a lining of any kind whatsoever. It may Ije, of (course, that the bird has changed its ])reeding habits as well as its breeding (quarters; for I think there is every reason for believing that it formerly nested in the Hebrides,

FULMAR PETREL ON NEST.

as an old chronicler records that '' A gentleman of the name of Campbell being fowling among the rocks of Mull, and having momited a ladder to take some birds out of their holes, was so surprised by one of them squirting a quantity of oil in his face that he quitted his hold and fell down and perished." Although the name of the bird is not mentioned specifically, I think that the use of the ladder almost proves that it was a Fulmar's nest which the unfortunate fowler was raiding.

Within the nineteenth century the bird has established itself as a breeding species in the Faroes to the detriment of the Gannet, and only as far back as 1878 it founded a breeding colony in the Shetlands. Seton quotes two opinions of the bird, which placed side by side appear to be ridiculously contradictory. The St. Kildan proudly says of it, " Can the world exhibit a more valuable commodity? The Fulmar furnishes oil for the lamp, down for the bed, the most salubrious food, and the most efficacious ointment for healing wounds. Dej^rive us of the Fulmar, and St. Kilda is no more." And the Faroese: "Nasty, stinking beast! Why, even his egg keeps its stench for years; his flesh no man can eat; and if you sleep on a bed in which even a handful of feathers have been put by ndstake, you will leave it long before morning."

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