GREAT BIRD GATHERINGS 41 



What is the secret of the delight which possesses 

 me at such a spectacle, which seems at the moment 

 to surpass all other delights, giving me a joy that will 

 last for days ? It is not merely that the pleasure 

 in the single bird is intensified, or doubled or in- 

 creased a hundred-fold. It is not the same old feeling 

 in a greater degree; there is a new element in it 

 which makes it different in character. The sight 

 dwells with pleasure on a pleasant landscape; but if 

 we then ascend a hill and look upon the scene from 

 that higher standpoint a quite different feeling is 

 experienced; the wider horizon is a revelation of 

 vastness, of a greatness which is practically new, 

 since the mind had previously become attuned to 

 earth as viewed from the lower level. Now we get 

 the element of sublimity. So, in the case of the large 

 bird seen in flocks and vast numbers — seen and 

 heard; it is a sudden revelation of wild life in its 

 nobler aspect — of its glorious freedom and power 

 and majesty. 



We get this emotion in various degrees at the 

 various breeding stations of our larger birds, notably 

 on the Yorkshire and Northumberland coasts, the 

 Bass Rock, the Orkneys and Shetlands, and "utmost 

 Kilda's lonely isle." Those who have experienced 

 it value it above all the delights this spectacular world 

 can afford them, and their keenest desire is for its 

 repetition. It is to taste this feeling that thousands 

 of persons, some with the pretext of bird-study or 

 photography, annually visit these teeming stations 

 within the kingdom, whilst others who are able to 



