EOTCHE. 161 



December, 1846. 'Every stream and burn falling into the 

 Firth was discovered to have some of these active little 

 divers, and so careless were they of the presence of man, 

 that in some instances they were taken alive, while others 

 are said to have been found in the interior of houses.' 



In Orkney they occasionally appear in great numbers 

 during winter. They were unusually abundant in the years 

 1803 and 1812, in January, in 1846-7, and in 1850-1, in 

 Sanday. They likewise visit Shetland. 



In Ireland they occur as stragglers. The late William 

 Thompson, Esq., of Belfast, has recorded their appearance 

 in the counties of Kerry and Wexford. 



One cannot iielp feeling pity for these poor little sea-birds, 

 driven so far from their native places by the unkindly blasts 

 of hyperborean hurricanes, and cast 'lean, rent, and beggared,' 

 on an alien and inhospitable element. It would have been 

 natural to suppose that the ordinary severity of the stormy 

 north would have rendered them proof against the milder 

 winters of our climate, and that our wildest tempests would 

 have seemed to them to blow but as 'gentle gales.' How- 

 ever, from some cause or other, the contrary effect at times 

 takes place; but inasmuch as it is an 'ill wind that blows 

 no one any good,' so we may on the other hand take 

 pleasure in the thought that their having been thus noticed 

 in so many places, shews that there must be in each such 

 case some one or more persons who both observe and record 

 the occurrence of the birds that come in their way. 'Quot 

 avium tot homines.' Every disadvantage is counterbalanced 

 by some advantage; every evil by some good. What applies 

 in the moral world applies equally, in its way, in the 

 natural. 'AH things are double one against another,' says 

 the author of the Book of Ecclesiasticus, 'and God hath 

 made nothing imperfect.' 



The Eotche is, as already observed, altogether devoted to 

 a 'life on the ocean wave,' where alone it is at home, except 

 indeed during the breeding-season, when, certainly, on the 

 other hand, if never else, it must, in one sense, be allowed 

 to be so. During the remainder of the year it never quits 

 the 'mighty deep,' either in storm or calm, though some- 

 times, as before shewn, the tremendous gales of the north are 

 too much for even this hardy bird to struggle against. He 

 cannot keep a 'good offing,' where, like the ship, he would 

 be secure, but is forced among the billows and breakers, and 



TOL. VTI. M 



