and the markings as the guillemot's. Some have been taken spotless and colourless, like a heron's; others altogether sienna, as the kestrel's sometimes is; while between these two extremes of no-colour and all-colour stretches as infinite a variety of markings as on the pebbles on the shore. Perhaps the most beautiful of all are those where the ground is a clear, bright green-blue, and the spots--large and irregularly scattered, of a rich chocolate shading into brown-pink--make on it a strong, bold, well-defined pattern, without any of the intermediate specks and streaks and zigzags that are characteristic of this bird's eggs. They are not laid in any nest, but on the bare flat rock, sometimes protected from the violence of the wind by lying in an indentation or where the rock is rough faced. But as a rule the guillemot does not seem to expect her egg to be blown off the spot where it is laid, and (though there are woful exceptions) she is right, for in due time a dusky fuzz-ball, with a noble appetite for little fishes, takes the place of each egg. Then it is, alas for the poor parent guillemots! that the sea-eagle comes on its broad pinions, yelping, and, swift as the wind, swoops down, grazing the surface of the rock, and, regardless of the indignant mob that rises in protest, flaps off with careless wing back to the eyrie, where its eaglets are waiting for food. And every time the sea-eagle comes and goes there is one fuzz-ball less than there was. "She seeks her aërie hanging In the mountain-cedar's hair And her brood expect the clanging Of her wings through the wild air, Sick with famine." But if tens are taken, thousands are left, and ere long the old birds, finding their young ones restless, and fearing, [Illustration: "WHERE THE SEA-FOLK CLUSTER"] perhaps, as they may well do, that a fierce gust may sweep them over the precipice on to ledges below, or that inexperience may tempt them too near the dangerous brink, take the little ones on their backs--so the climbers say--and fly down with them to the sea. Even if the chicks fall off in the course of the descent, it does them no harm to plunge into the water. It must astonish the youngsters to find themselves sousing into the sea, but the next instant they have discovered that all is right, and before their screaming mother has recovered from her concern at the accident, they are swimming about merrily and enjoying their first bath. And once in the ocean they remain there, _"In the blue vale of water 'twixt the waves_ _Ever the same, yet ever changed; no mark,_ _No spot whereon to fix a local love,_ _No home to be remembered for its peace,_ _No shapely bough, well known and best beloved_ _Within the crowded forest,"_ till the following May calls them back to the rocks and the cares and pleasures of domestic life.