AUGUST. 333 



moans, and screams, and piercing cries, from a million 

 of Kittiwakes, Guillemots, and Gulls, forms that 

 mingled chorus with the dashing billows, to which the 

 name of OEGAN has been rather oddly applied. The 

 proud Peregrine Falcon dashed above my head the 

 black sullen Cormorant flew past, to occupy the 

 apex of an isolated rock in the surge and, screaming 

 in his circling flight, the pied Oyster-catcher kept 

 still gyrating around us, among the rocks ; while the 

 vast ocean stretched before our view, dotted with 

 black islets, in sombre magnificence. Turning towards 

 St. David's, its battered tower glistened in the rays 

 of the sun, and the sound between the mainland and 

 Ramsay, again shone as a verdant lake ; while the 

 headlands of Pembrokeshire stretched in long succes- 

 sion southward, guarded by the outlying isles of 

 Skomar and Stockam. "We snatched a hasty repast 

 at the sole house on the island, and again 



" My boat is on the sea," 



amidst gigantic waving Fuci, oscillating with the bil- 

 lows, and flapping their long cold flabby fingers upon 

 the slaty rocks. This time we fortunately crested the 

 billows unalarmed and unscathed, and thus escaped 

 the unhappy fate of the late Mr. ADAMS, P.L.S., of 

 Pembroke, an unwearied botanist and conchologist :* 

 who, in an adventure along this same dangerous coast, 



* This lamented gentleman supplied Sir JAMES EDWARD SMITH with 

 many rare plants, and his name is deservedly recorded in the classic pages 

 of English Botany. According to DONOVAN in his Excursions through. 

 South Wales, Mr. ADAMS perished in the sea, having ventured too far 

 from shore, dredging for shells ; and DONOVAN himself relates that while 

 out on this same unfortunate coast, a violent squall rent the cordage of 

 thejr vessel, and rendered it useless. " Thus," he says, ' for nearly an 

 hour, unable to make any shore, we lay exposed to the rage of the con- 

 tending elements in the open sea, expecting at every breath our little boat 

 would upset, and plunge us into the merciless abyss of the deep." 



