170 BIRDS OF THE WAVE AND WOODLAND 



So close sometimes are their nest-holes crowded that 

 it is impossible to walk without putting- the foot in them, 

 and it even happens that these accommodating birds, when 

 hard pressed for room, inhabit " semi-detached " holes, and 

 live two families in one. But here too falls the shadow of 

 the sea-eagle, and the poor parrots' nurseries, when the 

 young ones sit outside their burrows, innocent of danger, 

 pay heavy tribute to the paramount lord of the northern 

 sky. No erne's nest is completely furnished unless it be 

 strewn with puffins' beaks. 



" The fierce sea-eagle 

 In port terrific, from his lonely eyrie 

 (Itself a burden for the tallest tree) 

 Looks down o'er land and sea as his dominion, 

 Or from long chase ascending with his prey 

 Feeds his eaglets in the noonday sun." 



Oddly enough, " the fierce sea-eagle " and the poor puffin 

 find another connecting link, less strained than that of 

 being the eater and the eaten, in the rabbit. The erne 

 will often take up its quarters for a time near a warren, 

 and the sea-parrots do the same ; but their reasons are very 

 different, for while the former goes among the coneys for 

 its meals, the latter does so to borrow the use of their 

 burrows. And they live together on apparent terms of 

 amity, much as the burrowing-owl and the prairie-dog live 

 together on the Texan wastes. 



