of, which continues rising and falling—which is why I call it a jodel—for a longer or shorter time, the volume of sound being increased, sometimes, to a wonderful extent. It ends, usually, as it began, with a few short, rough notes which may be called a bark, as the other is called a bray, though to neither is there much resemblance if we make either a dog or a donkey the basis of comparison. Altogether it is one of the strangest, weirdest sounds that can be imagined, and nobody, not accustomed to such surprises, would suppose it could issue from the lungs of so small an animal as a guillemot.
I made a strange error in regard to the utterer of this note when I first came to the Shetlands, and the history of it will show either what a fool I was (and am, in that case), or else how possible it is for such mistakes to arise, even with great care and close and continued observation—I should prefer it to show the latter. I thought it was impossible that I could have been mistaken, but now that I know I was I can see how it happened perfectly. At that time I knew nothing about the matter, for though I love natural history I hate the "British Bird" books, nor am I often in the way of being told anything, since, to be frank, I am as much a hermit as I am mercifully permitted to be: therefore, when I first heard the "bray" of the guillemot, as it is called, I was lost in wonder, and as it came but rarely, and never from any of the birds upon the one particular ledge that I watched day after day—often
