550 TRACTICAL ORNITHOLOGY. 



No, no : these ordinary matters are good enough for ordinary 

 minds. A high-souled critic informs us that we must not mingle 

 the sublimities of nature with common occurrences. Let the 

 people below amuse themselves as they best can. There, a gull 

 swept over the vessel, like a meteor ; and I almost fancied that 

 a guillemot peeped over the gunwale, as if he expected to find 

 a shoal of herrings afloat on the deck. I wish we had a cock- 

 ney ornithologist here. These magnificent waves remind me 

 of a more awful scene. Some people came from an island one 

 night in winter to take me to see a patient. We set out as 

 night fell, having six miles to row in darkness, over the deep 

 black sea, amid enormous waves that rolled in smoothly and si- 

 lently from the Atlantic, there having been a storm a few days 

 before. It was a dead calm. A long loud clear howl came 

 over the waters. The rowers rested and each blessed himself 

 and his friends, as the Celts do when in danger or dread. Was 

 it a drowning man ? Some said it might be the Great Northern 

 Diver. We lost our way, and could not see the land ; when 

 suddenly an enormous mass of water rose up behind us, broke 

 into white foam, and rushed roaring along a reef of rocks half 

 a mile in length, over which we had barely passed. Wave 

 after wave rolled over the barrier, until it presented an appear- 

 ance such as might well frighten a poor ornithologist. The 

 boatmen gazed into the dark night, shuddered when they re- 

 flected that they had escaped destruction only by two minutes, 

 then pulled their oars with vigour, and soon gained the land. 



