76 11777/ NATUBE AND A CAMERA. 



variation in the colour of their plumage. Some of 



the birds were flying straight along on the business 



of nest-making intent, whilst others wheeled idly 



round and round in order to satisfy their curiosity 



by making a leisurely survey of us and our boat. 



As far as the eye could see small objects, the sea 



was covered in every direction by a vast throng of 



Puffins, Guillemots, and Kazor-bills, many of which 



gazed in bewildered astonishment at us until the 



bows of the boat got quite close to them, when 



they dived with the swiftness and silence of thought 



and were gone. In front of us stood Borrera 



sternly guarded by its dark bulwark of forbidding 



crags, from the topmost edges of which brilliant 



green slopes of great steei^ness ran upwards until 



they were lost in the trailing skirts of a luminous 



white cloud. To our left was Stack Lee, a gigantic 



pillar of rock rising about three hundred feet out 



of the ocean. Its sloping upper parts and every 



available ledge and corner were positively white 



with Solan Geese sitting on their nests. Such a 



snow-like mass do these birds present, that we were 



told on a fine day the Stack may be distinctly seen 



from Long Island — a distance of fort)' miles. 



When we neared our destination the swell was 

 breaking so badly upon the rocks that we had 

 considerable doubts as to whether we should be 

 a1)le to land. A dog we had in the boat evidently 

 thinking that he, at any rate, was equal to the 

 task leapt overboard and tried. He easily reached 

 the rocks, but every time he attempted to land the 

 heavy backwash tore him away, and he would 

 inevitabh' have been drowned had not one of the 

 men seized and dragged him into the boat again. 



After a great deal of manaiuvring, accompanied 

 by much excitement on the part of tlie crew, a 



