BY H. H. MONTGOMERY, D.D. 3 



was no indication that there was a living thing on the 

 island. There were no cries of sea birds. The stillness was 

 wonderful. Presently a single dark- winged form flitted 

 across the island and vanished again into the gloom. In 

 another ten seconds thousands upon thousands of birds 

 seemed to spring like magic up out of the darkness from 

 every quarter without warning or cry of any kind. And 

 now backwards and forwards before my dazzled sight I saw 

 these countless dark shadows shooting with lightning rapidity 

 athwart the last of the evening light. Still no articulate 

 sound was heard. Nothing but the whistle as if of bullet 

 after bullet through the air, bewildering one with the sense 

 of numbers and of mysterious rushing life. Repeatedly a 

 bird would dash within an inch of my head, and then wheel 

 like lightning to one side to escape a collision. So imminent 

 seemed the danger of arriving at home minus an ear or a 

 nose from contact with a sharp beak that I was fain to 

 crouch down in the long grass to escape an accident. To 

 sit down on the ground on that particular island was possible 

 because there were no snakes. Nothing would have induced 

 me to have taken up the same position in the month of 

 March had I been upon the island called " Hummocky." But 

 of this hereafter. The minutes passed, and still this dizzy, 

 whirling, hurly-burly of creatures continued — silent, and 

 even awe-inspiring. Sometimes they came in squadrons of 

 hundreds, sometimes by tens. But still they came ; each 

 bird after a turn or two sinking with unerring instinct on to 

 its hole, finding it in the long grass and in the darkness with 

 a certainty which was truly marvellous. It was difficult to 

 tear oneself away from this wonderful spectacle. But at 

 length we returned to our tent, pitched near the water's 

 edge but still among the bushes, and all night long as I lay 

 trying to sleep I heard the cooing and cackling of innumer- 

 able birds feeding their young in their subterranean homes, 

 some of them apparently within a yard of my ear. At 

 length I fell asleep, and before I awoke, at 6 o'clock in the 

 morning, there was not a bird to be seen on the island. All 

 the old petrels had long ago sped away to their distant feed- 

 ing places. I regretted that I had not witnessed their 

 morning exit. In its wav it is as striking as their homeward 

 journey. For, as these birds cannot fly off the ground, 

 especially in the long grass, each one has to walk either to 

 the sea shore or else to the top of some rock before it can 

 take its flight. In some cases this journey must have meant 

 a distance of many hundred yards. Mr. Davies relates in 

 his paper, read in 1846, that the sealers showed him the 

 manner in which they caught the old birds for the sake of 

 their feathers, stopping up all the tracks they made except 

 one, which led to a pit into which they fell, and were suffo- 



