SEA PIGEON. 85 



on wing and over eye — is an Arctic species, seen 

 here only during the tempests of winter. 



GUILLEMOT. 



The Black Guillemot, or Sea Pigeon, makes 

 the red cliffs of our northern shore its nesting 

 place in summer. The birds deposit their two 

 dull - greenish eggs in the naked clefts of the sand- 

 stone rocks. On quiet summer days they love to 

 sit upright in rows on the inaccessible rock ledges, 

 looking grotesquely like so many "black bottles 

 ranged on a shelf, or float in dark groups on 

 the glassy billows below. As we wander over 

 the soft green sward that crowns these lofty 

 battlements of the deep, and watch the heaving 

 blue, and drink in the fresh wandering breeze 

 and the great joy of the summer's sky, the 

 plaintive whistling of these gentle birds, coming 

 up with the moan of the deep, forms a wild note 

 in nature's music not soon to be forgotten. 



Note. — The English, or House Sparrow, was first seen in P. E. Island, 

 in Charlottetown, November 26th, 1886. Since then it has multiplied rapidly 

 in the city. Foraging in the streets and yards in winter, nesting in inacces- 

 ible nooks of the tallest houses in summer, and making excursions in autumn 

 to feast in suburban grain-fields, it seems perfectly at home and well estab- 

 lished here. 



