Probably the most satisfactory birds for the student of ornithology to commence to photograph are sea-birds. They generally congregate during the breeding season in considerable numbers at some favourite and well-known spot; as a rule they are easily approached with a camera, and make interesting pictures on account of their graceful forms, contrasting colours, and surroundings. In stalking them with the camera, absolute quietness is necessary, and it is often imperative to approach them by inches at a time rather than feet, but

it is satisfactory to know that care and pains bestowed upon them are generally rewarded.

The Fame Islands, off the coast of Northumberland, form by far the best all-round sea-bird station in England. Permission to visit them is easily

TEKNS ON THE WINO.

obtained from Mr. H. A. Paynter, of Alnwick; boats are generally procurable at Sea Houses, and the watchers on them are most courteous and obliging fellows. The following birds and their nests

: eggs, and young may be photographed there Cormorants, lesser black-backed gulls, herring-gulls, kittiwakes, guillemots, puffins, eider-ducks, oyster-

catchers, ringed plovers, Sandwich, Arctic, and common terns. The last three species provide endless sport for the flying-bird photographer, and a visit to the island whereon they all breed together can never be forgotten. The picture on page 97 is one of a series we made there one not particularly suitable day. Eider-ducks breed on all the islands boasting anything in the nature of suitable cover, and whilst brooding are so tame that they will in some cases allow the naturalist to stroke them. This confiding characteristic of course affords the amateur photographer a grand chance, and if he does not secure it will not be thea good picture I am quite sure duck's fault. I passed my hand down the back of the bird represented on the opposite page, both before and after my brother made the study, and without in the least disturbing her.

The Bass Rock, a little further north, is an excellent place whereon to study gannets or solan geese, amongst the nests of which the visitor may walk with the utmost ease, in one place at least, and photograph the stately old birds and their eggs or young to his heart's content. Mr. Mac-kenzie, of the Canty Bay Hotel, which is right opposite, rents the Bass, and ferries visitors over by means of his own boats and men, and in fact does everything in the power of a kindly Scotsman to help forward the interests and enjoyment of anyone desirous of visiting the majestic old crag.

Ailsa Craig, on the West Coast of Scotland, is a capital bird-rock, but is difficult to get about on because of the loose nature of the earth and stones on its upper parts; however, Girvan, the cragsman, who lives upon it, is a very careful

EIDER-DUCK ON NEST.

fellow, and knows every inch of its traversable parts. At the same time it is well to impress upon the youthful naturalist the necessity of taking care of himself whilst upon it. My brother, mainly through being too venturesome had a very narrow escape from sliding over a cliff three or four

it.hundred feet deep when we were visiting

The Hebrides will well repay a visit, and are

thoroughly accessible from Oban as a centre. Our good friend Mr. Bisshopp, the naturalist of the town, is always ready to give advice in regard to the places to visit and the best men and boats to employ. St. Kilda is a grand place to visit for sea-birds, and the natives, contrary to report, will take the naturalist wherever he likes to go, provided the weather is sufficiently calm for them to use their boat. Both the Orkney and Shetland Islands are rich in sea-bird life, and boats and able guidance are, as a rule, procurable for hire.

A GHOUP OF PUFFINS.

YOUNG GULL OX CHIM.VEV.

It is great fun to stalk puffins at rest on a rock, some lying down sunning themselves in contented repose, and others looking inquisitively at the photographer and his apparatus. I have sometimes stood a little distance away and watched my brother creep up quietly inch by inch to a group similar to that opposite, and laughed outright at the foolishly comical figures the wondering birds cut with their grotesque beaks.

Whilst working the Shetlands during our holidays last summer, we visited the famous Xoup of

WHERE KITTIWAKES BREED.

Xoss, which is a perfect sea-fowl paradise. The kittiwakes sit in long lines upon the narrow ledges formed by the wearing away of the rock, and, in one or two places, may be photographed at fairly close quarters. The illustration opposite was

GULLS FEEDING A SCRAMBLE FOR HREAKFAST.

obtained from the top of a tremendous boulder, thrown high upon a number of others by some storm, and shows the peculiar conformation of the rocks on the ledges of which the birds were breeding. Immature gulls of various species hang round harbours and fishing-stations all through the spring and summer, when the rest of their kindred are away busily engaged with family cares. Their

ravenous appetites and bold familiarity generally afford plenty of scope for picture-making. We were hung up for a couple of days at the Queen's Hotel, Lerwick, by rough weather, and amused

YOVXO GULLS WAITING FOK MORE BREAKFAST.

ourselves by feeding and photographing a crowd of hungry young gulls, that were for ever hanging about the bay at the back of the house. Every morning during our stay the bird figured in the illustration on page 101, perched himself upon the chimney, invariably standing on one leg, and waited until he saw something like feeding going

on below, when down he came with a swoop and a splash. His portrait was secured from a landing window. We discovered that of all kinds of dainties dear to the sea-gull's maw, a piece of cod's liver

GULLS ON THE WING.

is the most prized, and it was laughable to see the scramble for each piece as we tossed it into the bay from the billiard-room window of the hotel. The illustrations representing a wait and a scramble were both obtained with the camera resting in a scuttleful of coals, which we lifted on to a window-seat, it being quite impossible to use the tripod.

Gulls, like salmon and sea-trout, delight to visit bodies of fresh water periodically, because it has the very desirable effect of killing the parasites living upon their bodies. At any time during the summer two continual streams of sea-birds of different species may be seen all day long crossing

a piece of land dividing Loch Clift in Unst from the sea. One stream represents birds going to wash and the other those returning. After washing in the fresh water, the birds rise, shake themselves in mid-air, and retire to preen themselves, facing the wind on a neighbouring hill-side; and the accompanying picture shows them in the act of flying away. Two extremely interesting birds to study are

the great skua and

Richardson's skua,

both of which get a

good deal of their living

by a reprehensible

method of marauding.

Upon seeing a gull

catch afishand swallow

it, the}7 chase him until

he disgorges it, when

they promptly appropriate it. I watched

three members of the \

latter species rob a poor

little kittiwake of the

just proceeds of her

labours one day, and

they reminded me of

so many sooty fiends.

When their breeding

grounds are visited they

swoop at the head of

the intruder, or hang

in mid-air facing a stiff KUA PREPARING TO SWOOP.

io8 WILD LIFE AT HOME.

breeze of wind, such as was blowing when the lower picture on the previous page was made.

The great skua, or bonxie as it is called in the Shetlands, breeds on Foula, where it is protected by Mrs. Traill, and also in Unst, where our friend, Mr. Laurence Edmondston, is carrying out the traditions of his worthy forefathers, and earning the gratitude of all British bird-lovers by keeping a watcher at his own expense on the top of Hernia Ness to look specially after the nests and eggs of the thirteen or fourteen pairs of birds breeding on his property. The bonxie makes a great impression upon the naturalist when he beholds it for the first time.

Upon the occasion of our visit, Mr. Edmondston kindly accompanied us to Henna Ness, and when we drew near to the first nest, which his watcher showed us, a large brown bird began to hover over our heads and make stoops at the one happening to be nearest to her charge. When she was joined by her mate she became much bolder and attacked with great fierceness, but invariably from behind and with her head to the wind. Directly she passed over the intruder, she rose gracefully in the air with outstretched pinions, and wheeling round to leeward made ready for another descent. She generally appeared to make her terrific downward rushes from an altitude of about two hundred feet and a distance of seventy or eighty yards, and when she got close up to her enemy dropped both feet

GREAT SKUA ATTACKING WATCHER.

and struck him on the back of the head with them as she passed over. One pair of birds, having a newly-hatched chick and chipped egg in their nest, were particularly

EGG AND YOUXG OF GKEAT

demonstrative and repeatedly knocked my cap off; the blows they struck for male and female both joined in the attack stung very sharply.

Some idea may be gathered of the great speed at which these birds fly when making a swoop at the intruder, when it is mentioned that my

BIRDS. in

brother was working his fast shutter at a speed equal to one-six-hundredth part of a second, and that in the photograph of the watcher's cap falling off his head after being struck, the bird had managed to get out of the plate altogether, with the exception of the tip of one wing.

The number of pairs of birds now breeding on Henna Xess is double what it was in the late Dr. Saxby's time. Mr. Edmondston informed me that occasionally, when a nest gets tilled with water during heavy rain, the birds remove their eggs to new and drier quarters. I noticed several mock - nests about near those containing eggs. When visiting the great skuas on Herma Ness, a KY SKUA. grand view may be obtained of the Muckle Flugga rock, which marks the most northern point of the British Islands, and rather befittingly forms the tailpiece to this chapter. Whilst the photograph of it was being taken, I was delighted to see a few fulmar petrels flying round the cliffs. They are easily distinguished from the gulls when on the wing by their peculiar gliding graceful flight. I was already aware that a number

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