The graceful terns, or sea-swallows, visit Scilly in great numbers in the spring, as also do the razor-bills (otherwise known as the common or black auk). The latter may be seen sitting in rows on the rocks in company with puffins and shags. The ledges of rock rising one above another, and the birds sitting on them, have been compared to the shelves and pots of a chemist’s shop. Like the puffin and the storm-petrel, razor-bills rarely leave the sea except for breeding. The storm-petrel is a visitor in Scilly, and may be seen there “walking on the water” in the strange way peculiar to it; and on account of this habit it is supposed to derive its name from that of the Apostle Peter. The scarlet-legged oyster-catcher, or “sea-pie,” makes Annet its breeding-ground; as also do many of the terns. The oyster-catcher’s eggs are laid on the loose shingle, and from their close resemblance to the rounded pebbles of the seashore they are not easily noticed, even if you search carefully for them. Any one who has not before had the opportunity of seeing a breeding-ground of the sea-birds will find a visit to Annet in the early summer quite a revelation, for no imagination could picture these myriads of birds, darkening the air with their wings, as they wheel and hover, screaming, over their temporary home. IX ST. MARY’S When you come to Scilly you naturally land first upon St. Mary’s Island, for there is the quay, where the steamer from England unloads her passengers and cargo. You may or you may not on first arriving feel capable of appreciating the picturesqueness of the stone walls and gateway of the quay, with Star Castle appearing on the hill behind; but through this gateway you must pass in order to enter the town. The pier now in use has only been built just over seventy years, and was lengthened twenty years ago; yet already again the sand is silting up against it, and making it less serviceable. From the pier you can see the houses of Hugh Town stretching in a long line round the curve of St. Mary’s Pool, the back walls of many of them rising straight out of the sea, if it happens to be high-water of a spring-tide. This Hugh Town on St. Mary’s Island is the metropolis, port, and shopping centre of the little archipelago, and, generally speaking, the hub of the Scillonian universe. Formerly the presence of the fort behind it gave it yet another kind of importance, and made it the centre of the military as well as of the civil life. It is built chiefly on the narrow sandy neck which unites the promontory of the “Heugh” or “Hugh” (now better known as Garrison Hill) to the rest of the island.