spoilers. But even amidst such scenes, man
shows himself the most daring of all animals.
The cragsman, or fowler, is let down from these
tremendous precipices (thirteen times the height
of Blondin's rope) by means of a rope tied round
his waist and held by a comrade, risking his life
on the chafing of a strand, the falling of a
stone, or the steadiness of his mate's arm. An
old saying proverbially connects death sooner
or later with this perilous trade. " His gutcher"
(grandfather), says the proverb of the Foula man,
"guid (went) before, his father guid before, and
he maun (must) expect to gue over the sneug
(cliff) too."

Such are some of the scenes on Fowl island
from May to August. After August all the
birds are fled. From August until May, during
the long winter mouths, the rocks are deserted,
the welkin is silent, and no fowl covers the sea,
consisting then of rolling billows from one
hundred to a hundred and fifty feet high, dashing
against and leaping upon the towering rocks. It
is during the intervening eight months that the
skuas spreading their wings upon the currents
of the winds range over all the shores of the
globe.

About the middle of October the skuas and
their associates may be seen at Torbay. If any
one, curious in observing bird life, will beat
about in a boat towards Berry Head on a fine
afternoon, he will witness an interesting display
of the instincts of the feathered fishers. The
boat will sail near many flocks of guillemots, a
group between the auks and the divers. They
will scarcely heed the approach of the boat, for
several kinds of these nonchalant birds indeed
disturb themselves very little even after receiving
discharges of small shot. I remember once
seeing a row of them standing upon a rocky
ledge on the coast of Sutherlandshire, and never
attempting to get away, although a fowling-
piece thinned their ranks half a dozen times.
All they did, was to rid themselves of the plaintive
squeaks of the wounded by cuffing them
over the edge of the precipice and headlong
down into the sea below. Kittiwakes,
announcing themselves as kittiweea, a small white
and grey bird of the gull tribe, are just as
observant as the guillemots are heedless, and
may be seen hovering over and watching the
movements of the boat and its inmates. Speckled
divers, red and black throated, busy, yet wary,
may be seen every now and then coming up to
the surface and shaking their wings ere they
dive again. Those long dark-coloured lines of
birds flying across the horizon evenly, if quickly,
are shags and cormorants. They swim well, and
never dive when flying, but dive when swimming,
with a curving leap or spring out of the water.
The dark little strange-looking birds skimming
about all over the bay, and sousing themselves
into the water for a moment or two, are the
Manx shearwaters. When they see their prey
they stop and pat the water with their feet, like
petrels. Flocks of ducks and common scoters
may be seen occasionally crossing the bay. Yon
bird with wings expanding the length of the
stature of a man, is the Solan goose, or gannet.
Prior to diving, he seems to throw himself upon
his back in the air, and then plunges straight
down, dashing the water into a mass of foam.
He stays down about fifteen seconds. But these
feathered fishers have not everything their own
way. Large dark birds dash swiftly and glidingly
among the gulls, kittiwakes, and cormorants,
each of them selecting a victim with a well-
filled gullet. These are skuas; generally of the
Pomarine and Richardson kinds. Absentees
from the labours of diving or fishing, they force
the fishers to disgorge their fish, and on this
account seafaring folks at Torbay give them
a name with a spice of political satire in
it, calling them "Irish lords." The Manx
shearwaters they call "mackerel corks,"
because, like the corks of nets, they show the
whereabouts of the shoals of fish. The food
question, indeed, explains all these migrations
and scenes of bird and fish life, for the feathered
fishers follow the shoals of herring or mackerel
fry. The skuas of Torbay are most frequently
young birds, probably hatched in the Shetland
islands, migrating southward, to set up for
themselves in their hereditary trade in a milder
climate.

Scarce rather than rare birds, it is surprising
the skuas have been so little known by the
public, and so recently studied by the savans.
However, the species called Buffon's, and the
undescribed species already mentioned, are rare.
A bird of Buffon's species was shot about the
20th of October, 1862, at Windmill-hill, near
Henfield, Sussex. It had been blown inland by
the hurricane, and when found floating on a flood
it was so much exhausted that it allowed itself
to be approached within four yards, and even
then it was necessary to disturb it before it
would rise. Very little is known of the habits
of this skua. No doubt they are similar to
those of the group, with differences corresponding
to its specific characteristics. The length
of Buffon's skua is about two feet from the
point of the beak to the tip of the tail; the
wings are each about a foot long from the
bend, or flexure to the apex; and the length
of the tail, which is formed chiefly by two
long middle parallel feathers, is about twelve
inches.

Richardson's skua is less rare than Buffon's.
As the one has been specified by means of the
name of the celebrated French animal painter
in words, the other has received the name of a
distinguished British Arctic traveller, Sir John
Richardson. The length of this species is twenty-
one inches, the spread of the wings is forty-two,
the tail is eight inches long, and the middle tail-
feathers are only three inches longer than the
others. Richardson's skua breeds in the Shetland
islands, on the islands of Noss, Unst, and
Foula. Birds of this species breed socially, from
fifty to sixty being found together at one breeding
station. These breeding stations are
sometimes on the tops of mountains, and sometimes
on sequestered heaths. The nest is built of dry
grass and moss, and contains two olive-brown