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gulls sail occasionally by. Far out on the sand at the edge of the 
water are two black objects, and, at the very extremity of the point 
another, so still that you might easily mistake them for stumps of 
wood, or the remains of some old fish garth. These also are birds, 
Cormorants watching for prey. Every morning early the Cor- 
morant leaves his rocky haunt at St. Bees Head, and betakes 
himself to the mouth of the rivers. There he fishes all day, and 
at sundown hies him back again to his resting place for the night. 
Heavy ungainly bird as he looks, when once fairly started for St. 
Bees he will beat any Furness locomotive hollow. And yet I 
have known a person walk along this shore and say there was 
nothing to do or to look at. 
Speaking of Gulls and Cormorants brings us into the fifth and 
last great order, the Swimmers. This order is very well represented 
here in all its branches. During the last four years I have had 
brought to me no less than nine species of ducks, and have seen a 
tenth which was killed some years ago. 
Swans and Geese are included in the same order with the duck, 
-the commonest of the geese being, I think, the Bernicle, which 
occurs each year in varying numbers. 
The Bernicle Geese are abundant in the Arctic regions, Iceland, and the 
North of Europe. They migrate to the south for the winter, keeping to the 
sea-coast and flying in considerable flocks. They are here from the end of 
October till March. The head and bill of this goose are exceedingly small. 
Speaking of the Bernicle Geese leads us to the subject of the Migration of 
Birds, as it is the bird about whose annual journeyings to and from this country 
we know most. The popular ideas about Migration are very loose, the birds 
being supposed to go either north or south as the case may be, in a happy-go- 
lucky sort of manner, chance having a great deal to do with the country they 
alight in. But this is by no means the case. The bird leaves our shores with 
a fixed purpose. It knows where it is going, and which way it will go by, and 
in all probability will not stray more than a mile to the right or left of its 
purposed track in the whole course of its long journey. How does it know its 
way, and why does it choose that particular track? which is often by no means 
the easiest it might choose. Take the Mediterranean Sea for instance ; the 
great mass of small migratory birds do not cross at Gibraltar, nor from Sicily to 
