the Berwickshire Naturalists' Club. 13 



as it flew from us, its shrill plaintive cry), were seen in their 

 breeding-grounds ; and the blackcock * was heard calling 

 harshly to his mates. On this occasion, as on several pre- 

 vious ones, I was struck with the cries of the birds [we 

 noticed : there was no sprightliness in them, nor melody ; but 

 all were plaintive, or rapid and harsh, and tended to increase 

 that still sobriety — that almost solemn mood — which irre- 

 sistibly steals over the mind of him who traverses these noise- 

 less, wide, dark-brown moors. The melody of the groves is 

 not in harmony with the scene ; and the warblers leave it 

 willingly for haunts nearer the cheerful buzz of man and civil- 

 isation. But our excursion in July presented us with a most 

 remarkable contrast to the scenery of the Cheviots : a wide 

 and rough-rolling sea, a coast fronted with lofty, dark, and 

 precipitous rocks, caverned with gloomy recesses, so bold, so 

 rugged, and naked, that Scotland scarce boasts one of supe- 

 rior grandeur. And how diverse were its feathered tenants 

 in appearance and habits ! The slender-legged tribes of the 

 moor, clothed in a mottled plumage, were here replaced with 

 birds distinguished by short legs, strengtrTof body, and by 

 colours disposed in large and unmixed patches, often strongly 

 contrasted : and while the former wheeled round and about 

 us in circles, muttering their cries on wing, the latter flew out 

 in a straight undeviating line, and silently. Nor were they 

 less distinguished by their voices; for the cries of seafowl 

 are never plaintive, but most harsh, and most consonant with 

 the pictorial character of their haunts. Pennant has given a 

 description of these, so excellent, that I must be allowed to 

 quote it here, with only a very few alterations, to make it 

 more exact to St. Abb's Head, the place of our visit. This 

 magnificent promontory is a huge insulated mass of trap 

 rocks f, whose seaward sides form precipices of vast height, 

 hollowed in many places into caverns, in which the wild 

 pigeons ;£ build their nests, and nurture their young in safety, 

 amid the spray of waves that never sleep in rest. In some 

 parts, the caverns penetrate far, and end in darkness; in 

 others, are pervious, and give a romantic passage by another 

 opening equally superb. Many of the rocks are insulated, of 

 a pyramidal form, and soar to a great height. The bases of 

 most are solid; but in some pierced through and arched. 

 They are covered with the dung of the innumerable flocks of 

 birds which resort here annually to breed, and fill every little 

 projection, every hole, which will give them leave to rest. 

 Multitudes were swimming about ; others swarmed in the 



* Tetrao Tutrix Lin., Female, Grey hen, Prov. 



f Flora of Berwick, i. pref. xiv. xv. J Columba Liv'm Selby. 



