“Razor-bills and willocks,” said the old man. “There’s plenty of them here; but I have a notion the birds will not mind him any more than the dog did.” “What queer names for birds,” cried Agnes; “I never heard those names before. How I should like to see the birds!” “Come here, miss,” said the old man, “and I’ll show them to you;” and giving her his hand he helped her down some of the rocks, and lifted her over others, till he placed her in a situation where she distinctly saw a large guillemot or willock, as the man called it, sitting by itself on the bare ledge of the rocks. [Illustration: THE GUILLEMOT] “Oh! dear,” cried Agnes, “what a curious bird that is. I never saw anything like it in all my life.” “And those are young ones,” said the man, pointing down to some little creatures, looking like young ducks, dabbling in the sea beneath. “But how can they ever get there?” cried Agnes, astonished at the almost immeasurable height at which the old bird appeared to sit above the young ones. “The old ones carry them down on their backs,” said the old man. This appeared perfectly incomprehensible to Agnes; but she had already learnt by her travels not to laugh at things because she did not comprehend them; and she therefore said nothing, while the man helped her back to the place where her mother was waiting for her. “I can’t show miss a razor-bill to-night,” said the man, “without going a good way; for every bird keeps its rock to itself.” Mrs. Merton now gave the man something for his trouble, and they returned to the hotel, where they found Mr. Merton waiting tea for them. Agnes was quite delighted to tell her papa what she had seen; “but I suppose,” said she, “what the old man said about the old birds carrying down the young ones on their backs, could not be true.” “It appears very strange, certainly,” said Mr. Merton, “but my friend, Mr. Waterton, who I believe knows more about birds than any other man living, has often told me the same thing.” “Can you tell me anything more about these birds?” asked Agnes. “The bird you saw,” said Mr. Merton, “is generally called the foolish guillemot, because it lays its egg on the bare rock, without any nest. I say its egg, for each female bird is said to lay only one; on which she sits, in an upright, and, in what appears to us, a most awkward position, till the egg is hatched; which is generally about a month. The young birds are at first covered with a sort of yellow down, mixed with bristly hair; and, as they sit on narrow ledges of rock, only a few inches in breadth, it seems wonderful how they can help tumbling into the sea.” “But, if each bird lays only one egg, I wonder there are so many young ones,” said Agnes; “for I should think that a great many eggs must be broken or stolen.”