478 PRACTICAL ORNITHOLOGY. 



But summer and autumn too are gone, and here we are, in 

 the cold month of March, coasting the North Sutor of Cromarty, 

 in a small boat manned by no less a personage than the King, 

 — at least his companions give him that title — and a crew of 

 active, intelligent, and most obliging young men ; you observe 

 on those crags a flock of Cormorants, and as they fly off, you 

 perceive on the side of one of them the white spot distinctive 

 of the larger species, Phalacrocorax Carbo. There, a Rock 

 Dove shot into one of those low caves that occur here and 

 there along the base of the red gneiss cliffs, whose perpendicu- 

 lar or slightly inclined strata exhibit in several places the most 

 fanciful contortions. But the tide is ebbing, and the current 

 w^ill presently be strong ; so let us return, and as we proceed 

 endeavour to obtain a shot at those flocks of beautifiil Sea-Ducks. 

 Observe that fine male, with the white head and neck, his 

 small taper tail raised out of the water. They are off, but mul- 

 titudes are scattered over the channel, and especially along the 

 edges of this expanded part, which is named Cromarty Bay. 

 A seal shews his glittering round head in our w^ake, w^hile the 

 Black-backed Gull floats high over us. Hark ! what can be 

 the cause of that outcry among the small gulls ? Two pirates, 

 Lestris parasiticus, are in pursuit. If you follow one of them 

 with your eye, you will see it plunge through the air after a 

 gull, which attempts in vain to escape, being closely followed 

 in all its windings, until at length, finding no means of eluding 

 its pursuer, it disgorges a small fish, which as it falls is dex- 

 terously caught by the bold jager. Now, we are near the great 

 sand flats of the Bay of Nigg, which at low water fill up more 

 than half the breadth of the basin. Vast meadows of Sea 

 Grass, Zostera marina, cover these shoals, and afford an abun- 

 dant supply of food to the Brent Geese, which you see here and 

 there in large flocks, some on shore, and others floating amidst 

 multitudes of Common and Black-headed Gulls. It is a sight 

 worth coming all the way from Edinburgh to see, and in truth 

 such as I have never seen before, although familiar enough with 

 these same geese, which are abundant in some parts of the outer 

 Hebrides. On the water, they are easily distinguished from 

 ducks and other birds, not by their size and colour merely, but 



