guillemot, at least in this latter respect, but I have seen much less of it than the other. Unless, however, it be supposed more difficult to catch and hold many fish than many insects, there is no reason why the puffin should be singled out for wonder in this respect. The water wagtail, when feeding its young, fills its bill with insects, which it catches, not only on the ground, but flying also—a great feat, surely—and the lesser spotted woodpecker brings a similar assortment to the nesting-tree. I believe myself that most insect-eating birds do the same whilst feeding their family, unless when they catch an insect sufficiently large to be a host in itself.
What a whirr of pinions, and fine wild chase beneath the beetling precipice, and out to sea! It was the Arctic skua, pursuing, this time, a black guillemot, no doubt en route for its young. They went so fast—the skua with the swoop of a peregrine falcon—that I could only just follow the smaller bird, but I caught its white wing-patches, so am sure it was not a puffin. Half-way out of the cove the guillemot must have dropped its fish, for its pursuer descended, and hung hovering over the water, seemingly embarrassed, and without alighting upon it. This, at first sight, seems evidence in favour of the theory that the skua, unless it succeeds in catching the spoil before it touches the sea, will have nothing to do with it; but as a herring-gull now flew up, and behaved in the same way, the more legitimate inference is that both birds were looking for what neither of them could see, and that
