much less striking. I have seen the same thing with a shark at sea.
This morning the ravens again flew over the ness, going the other way, however, and I only saw three of them. As before, it was the skuas who informed me of this, but, in spite of their shrieking, they did not seem to meddle much with the grim, black birds. Though there is an impressiveness about the raven's whole appearance which, with the knowledge of what it is, sets the imagination working, yet there is nothing majestic in its actual flight, and these three, with their measured, laboured flappings, offer a clumsy contrast to the arrow-like grace of the skuas.
The chick is still upon the ledge, so I have still a chance of seeing him leave it; but even with two plaids, on one of which I lie and in the other wrap myself, like an embalmed mummy, it is cold work waiting—and still more when one has the lumbago. I was awakened early this morning by nasty pains, more right on the hip—the very bone of it—than in the true lumbagoey region; but it plays right lumbago music—"'tis enough, 'twill serve." This comes of lying on the rocks for six hours at a time in a Shetland summer. I was a fool, I think, to come here; but is there any one who is not, either in thinking or acting at any time ici bas?
When we are born we cry that we are come
To this great stage of fools.
Now I have the lumbago, with very little for it, and had I not come here I should be regretting the loss of
