CHAPTER VII. 



FRAGMENTS FROM THE SEASHORE. 



N 



A WELSH ROCK STACK. 



O feathered friends strike 



the imagination of the 



beholder with so much force 



as sea-fo\vl. Whether they 



be seen wheehng in noisy 



clamour round the summit of 



some rocky headland upon 



which they breed, or reposing 



on the sunlit waves of the 



ever-restless ocean, they are 



things of grace and beauty, 



and impress the mind with 



a vividness that neither time nor circumstance 



can stale. 



Near the end of June, 1900, I travelled North 

 with the intention of revisiting the Bass Rock 

 in quest of photographs of gannets and their 

 young at home. When I neared North Berwick, 

 however, I met two ornithological friends who 

 had already been there, and they informed me 

 that my project was useless, as a number of 

 masons and labourers engaged in the construction 



