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On the ledges, too, can be seen rows of little whitebreasted puffins; razor-bills are perched here and there, as well as countless guillemots. The ringed or bridled guillemot also breeds on the cliffs, and a number of other types of northern sea-birds are periodically noticed along these inaccessible Bempton Cliffs. The guillemot makes no nest, merely laying a single egg on a ledge.
The adjoining precipice, farther westward, was occupied by guillemots and razorbills, who had deposited their eggs, the former on the naked ledge, the latter in the crevices in the face of the cliff Here the jackdaws appeared quite at their ease, their loud, merry note being heard above every other sound, as they flew in and out of the fissures in the white rock or sate perched on a pinnacle near the summit, and leisurely surveyed the busy crowd below."
She spoke of Great Rose, still further westward, where the gulls encamp among the ruined huts once used by the builders of the Monk Lighthouse; of Little Rose, where the great cormorant is at home; of Melligan and Carregan, the one favoured by shags, the other by razor-bills and guillemots. And so talking, while they wondered, she brought them across the hill to the great headland.
The boy's eyes grew round, and he exclaimed "Foolish guillemots' eggs?" "He is in the egg stage," said his father, smiling. "I won't answer for guillemots," said the General, "but nothing seems to come amiss to Fergus, though his chief turn is for stones."
If we study the bird population at one of the breeding stations on the coast, we find, generally speaking, that each kind of bird inhabits a particular portion of the cliff; on the lower ledges are the Guillemots and Kittiwake Gulls; higher up are Razorbills and Fulmars, and at the top, where the cliff is broken and the face of the rock covered with turf and soil, the Puffin finds shelter for its egg.
Some have broad bills, with a white stripe on it, and cry something like the moor-hens at home. Those are razor-bills. And what are those who say "marrock," something like a parrot? The ones with thin bills? they are guillemots, "murres" as we call them in Devon: but in some places they call them "marrocks," from what they say. And each has a little baby bird swimming behind it.
During all these months of wandering, the majority seem to ignore the land, to pass away from it altogether, and to spread themselves over the surface of the ocean regardless of mainland or island. Some useful observations, which throw some light on the distance that Guillemots are accustomed to wander from land, were made by Lieut.
"Let us get on!" said Godfrey to himself. And he walked along the beach towards the north, before venturing to climb the sand dunes, which would allow him to reconnoitre the country over a larger extent. The silence was absolute. The sand had received no other footmark. A few sea-birds, gulls or guillemots, were skimming along the edge of the rocks, the only living things in the solitude.
Along the ocean, where crevices of the descending iron-chiselled cliffs are fugitively green with ribbons of pale grass, downy-winged ducks purr, mating guillemots coo incessantly, and tremulous oogzooks chirrup joyously to their young. As the natives listened, a deep nasal bellowing from the far ocean trembled in the air. Not a man stirred. The sound vibrated into silence. The auks screamed.
Thousands and thousands of them perch and chatter on the rocks and fly screaming in the air, amongst them being guillemots, kittiwakes, gulls, terns, cormorants, puffins, and eider-ducks, for which latter St. Cuthbert is said to have had great affection; certainly they are the gentlest of these wild sea-fowl.
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