•22 THE BIRDS OF HELIGOLAND 



crowds of lighter or darker brownish-grey females and young birds 

 of all possible species. Nowhere does the quick observant eye 

 find rest. Suddenly are heard — first faintly, then in increasing 

 loudness— sounds like distant trumpet-blasts, and once more our 

 eyes are attracted upwards, where a long chain of Whooper Swans, 

 eighteen or twenty in number, in snow-white plumage, calmly 

 pursue their way with measured beatings of their wings. 



These, indeed, are red-letter days for the ardent sportsman and 

 ornithologist. Unfortunately, they are onty too rare ; for this 

 wonderfid phase of bird-life requires not only a very severe and 

 persistent frost with snow, but also an uninterrupted spell of 

 easterly winds, lasting at least four weeks. The same causes which 

 then impart the aspect of an arctic winter to the surrounding sea 

 also invest our little island with a similarly polar character. The 

 united forces of winds and currents drive huge ice floes, from four 

 to seven feet thick, upon the shore and on the reefs ; these gigantic 

 blocks tower in romantic shapes to a height of from twenty to 

 thirty feet against the face of the clift". Snow in part covers this 

 chaotic barricade of ice, while the rugged and torn clitl's jutting 

 out above it form, in the dull and wintry atmosj^here, a back- 

 ground of deepest tone, and invest the whole scene with a 

 beauty and grandeur such as cannot be painted by the richest 

 imagination. 



At the north side of the island, the upper portions of the cliff 

 pi'oject somewhat beyond its base, which latter, being more or less 

 subject to the erosive action of the waves, is excavated into numerous 

 grottos and recesses. From the inclined strata forming the upper 

 overhanging portion of the clitf, moisture trickles down throughout 

 the whole of the year. On the setting in of severe frost, the drops 

 of water collecting at the lower edge of this overhanging portion 

 are frozen into icicles, which, soon attaining to a length of five or six 

 feet, hang down at higher and lower elevations from the face of the 

 cliff; and, continuing to be fed by the incessant flow of water from 

 above, rapidly increase in length and thickness, until, reaching the 

 base of the cliil', they form at irregular intervals columns or pillars 

 of ice from twenty to sixty feet high, between which Ave may pass 

 into the recesses and caverns behind. A more marvellous and 

 fixnciful work of nature than these remarkable ice pillars it is 

 difficult to imagine. 



At another part of the coast, again, the rocks, from about the 

 middle of the height of the cliff, slope downwards irregularly — 

 sonaewhat in the form of terraces. As the water which trickles 

 down the side of the cliff freezes, these terraces become gradually 

 covered by a thick sheet of ice. The whole scene then gives one 



