CRA PEER (RV 
“DREAM CHILDREN” 
ISITING these islands in the late summer im- 
presses me with a fact that it is easy to forget, 
viz. that even the most oceanic of sea-birds—the 
wandering albatross or stormy petrel, for instance— 
pass almost as much of their life upon the land as the 
water. The breeding season is no slight matter, last- 
ing but a short time. It goes on for months and 
months, and sometimes, from its earliest beginnings, 
must represent a period not very far short of half the 
year. On the ——shire coast, for instance, the terns 
appeared in the earlier part of April, and I was told 
by the fishermen that they stayed sometimes till well 
into September. How the gulls at the end of July 
stand congregated on their nesting-grounds, as if the 
business of matrimony were rather beginning than 
ending, 1 have already mentioned, and it is the same 
thing here in August with the guillemots. Every- 
where the ledges are crowded with them, as they 
were when I last came in June—indeed, if there is 
any difference, the numbers seem even greater. But 
though there is the same general appearance, the 
glasses soon reveal the fact that, with very few ex- 
ceptions, all the young birds are departed. Such as 
remain are no larger than the chicks I saw in the 
spring, and as most of the parents were then still 
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