very unlike the common seal, they are always in the water.
I have now satisfied myself that the young guillemot is petted, sometimes, by birds that are not its parents. The facts are as follows: having watched the seals till past five, I determined to explore a little, and walked out along the promontory which forms the opposite side of this little Shetland fiord, and the end of which, except for the outlying stacks, must be about the most northern point of that portion of the British Empire which imperialists care least about—I mean the British Isles. Here I found some more guillemot and kittiwake ledges, and on one of these were some half a dozen of the former birds, one being a young one. The latter was with its parents, on a place which, though it seemed to project but a hair's breadth, was yet the safest part of the ledge, which was very narrow and dangerous-looking. Here I left him for a very short time, to get further down the rocks, but on my return I found he had left this comparatively secure place and was now right away, on what, but for a very slight slanting slope, with a giddy projection here and there, looked like the sheer face of the precipice. No bird was with it: the chick was evidently in distress, and now, for the first time, I heard a little sharp note proceeding from it, which really did sound something like the word "guill," or "guilly." Some feet above where the chick was, but separated from it by a fearfully steep and dangerous face of rock, another guillemot sat on
