the worsted bird's ascending the rock to get to his nest, the victorious one ran, or rather waddled, at him, putting him to a short flight up to it. But, though defeated, this bird was cordially received by his own partner, who threw up her head and opened her bill at him in the same way, as though sympathising, and saying, " Don't mind him; he 's rude." In such affairs, either bird is safe as soon as he gets within close distance of his own nest, for it would be against all precedent, and something monstrous, that he should be followed beyond a certain charmed line drawn around it.
Nothing is more interesting than to look down from the summit of some precipice on to a ledge at no great distance below, which is quite crowded with guillemots. Roughly speaking, the birds form two long rows, but these rows are very irregular in depth and formation, and swell here and there into little knots and clusters, besides often merging into or becoming mixed with each other, so that the idea of symmetry conveyed is of a very modified kind, and may be sometimes broken down altogether. In the first row, a certain number of the birds sit close against and directly fronting the wall of the precipice, into the angle of which with the ledge they often squeeze themselves. Several will be closely pressed together so that the head of one is often resting against the neck or shoulder of another, which other will also be making a pillow of a third, and so on. Others stand here and there behind the seated ones, each being, as a rule, close to his or her partner. There is another irregular row about the centre of the ledge, and equally here it is to be remarked that the
