172 BIRD WATCHING 



slab of the rock just opposite to the nest. For a 

 little both birds uttered low, deep, croaking notes 

 in weird unison with the surroundings and the sad 

 sea-dirges, after which they were silent for a con- 

 siderable time, the one standing and the other sitting 

 on the nest vis-a-vis to each other. At length the 

 former, which I have no doubt was the male, hopped 

 across the slight space dividing them on to the nest, 

 which was a huge mass of seaweed. There were 

 now some more deep sounds and then, bending over 

 the female bird, the male caressed her by passing the 

 hooked tip of his bill through the feathers of her head 

 and neck, which she held low down the better to 

 permit of this. Afterwards the two sat side by side 

 together on the nest. 



" The whole scene was a striking picture of affection 

 between these dark, wild birds in their lonely, wave- 

 made home. 



" Here was love unmistakable, between so strange a 

 pair and in so wild a spot. But to them it was the 

 sweetest of bowers. How snug, how cosy they were 

 on that great wet heap of 'the brown seaweed,' just 

 in the dark jaws of that gloom -filled cavern, with 

 the frowning precipice above and the sullen-heaving 

 sea beneath. Here in this gloom, this wildness, this 

 stupendousness of sea and shore, beneath grey skies 

 and in chilling air, here was peace, here was comfort, 

 conjugal love, domestic bliss, the same flame burning 

 in such strange gargoyle-shaped forms amidst all the 

 shagginess of nature. The scene was full of charm, 

 full of poetry, more so, as it struck me, than most 

 love-scenes in most plays and novels — having regard, 

 of course, to the prodigious majority of the bad ones. 



