Man is, of course, the chief enemy of these sea-bird colonies, for in the bleak and barren islands where they breed, human life could be scarcely supported if it were not for the annual harvests of eggs and young. The guillemots' eggs are collected by tens of thousands. This work commences at Flamborough, for instance, in the middle of May. For the first nine days the climber has a good run of eggs; for the next nine, eggs are scarce. At the end of that time all the birds who had been first robbed have laid again, and he has a second run of large hauls, averaging from two to three hundred a day. Then comes a second "slack" of nine days, after which there is, as it were, the aftermath, sometimes hardly worth the trouble and danger of gathering, sometimes equal in value to the first harvest. The birds themselves, too, are eaten, more especially the puffin. St. Kilda has been described as "the paradise of puffins: every available spot is burrowed and honeycombed with their holes, and the sea is often black with birds." Hither in the nesting season come the islanders--men, women, and children--and with short rods, at the end of which are nooses of horsehair or string, drag the little "bougies," as they call them, out of their burrows. The birds are plucked (the feathers being carefully put by for sale), cleaned, rubbed over with salt, and hung up in strings to the roofs of the cabins, where the peat-smoke partially "cures" them, and in this state they form one of the chief and choicest items of the St. Kildan's austere fare. But altogether apart from its attractions at the "hardy Norseman's" winter board, the puffin is a very charming little bird. Its very quaintness makes it engaging, for, whether you take it in profile, with its grotesque beak in completest evidence, or full-face, with its queer, owl-like look, its genuine unaffected comicality commends it to your amused and kindly regard. For it is a most amiable fowl. It never seems to quarrel with its kind, and even when it does the disagreement is rather the make-believe of clowns than in serious earnest. The puffin is almost voiceless, its usual sound being a purring noise, which, when it is submitted to the extreme indignity of handling, becomes a kind of half-hearted grumbling. No birds are more sociable than the "sea-parrots": they are never seen alone, and even in their colonies they are not exclusive, admitting any other sea-fowl that likes to join them to equal rights of citizenship. But you must not put your fingers into its beak. Puffins are not called "parrots" for nothing. When breeding commences, the islands or headlands that they frequent present scenes of most delightful activity. "Above, around, in cloudy circles wheeled, Or sailing level on the polar gale That cool with evening rose, a thousand wings, The summer nations of these pregnant cliffs Play'd sportive round."