Mr John MacGillivray on the Island of St Kilda. 59 
Far below me could be seen the long heavy swell rolling in 
from the Atlantic, and climbing up the dark rock whose base 
it clothed with sheets of snow-white foam, as it broke with a 
sound at times scarcely perceptible, but at intervals falling 
upon the ear like distant thunder. In many places the rock 
was scarcely visible on account of the absolute myriads of sea- 
birds sitting upon their nests ; the air was literally filled with 
them, and the water seemed profusely dotted with the larger 
fowl, the smaller ones being nearly invisible on account of the dis- 
tance. The sound of their wings as they flew past, joined totheir 
harsh screams as they wheeled along the face of the cliff, startled 
me from the reverie into which I was thrown by the strange 
scene before me. Every little ledge was thickly covered 
with kittiwakes, auks, and guillemots; all the grassy spots 
were tenanted by the fulmar, and honeycombed by myriads of 
puffins ; while close to the water, on the wet rocks which were 
hollowed out into deep caves, sat clusters of cormorants, erect 
and motionless, like so many unclean spirits guarding the en- 
trance of some gloomy cavern. On rolling down a large stone 
from the summit, a strange scene of confusion ensued. It 
would perhaps fall upon some unhappy fulmar sitting upon the 
nest, crushing her in an instant, then rolling down the crags, 
which reverberated its echoes far and near, tearing long fur- 
rows in the grassy slopes, and being shivered into fragments 
upon some projecting crag, scattering in dismay the dense 
groups of auksand guillemots. Its progress is all along marked 
by the clouds of birds which affrighted shoot out from the pre- 
cipice to avoid the fate which nevertheless would befal many, 
until at length it reaches the bottom, and is received into the 
water along with its many victims. The startled tenants of 
the rock now return to their resting-places, and all is again 
comparatively quiet. 
Several species of gull are of common occurence. Larus 
marinus and fuscus, the great and lesser Black-backed Gulls 
(An Farspach), L. argentatus, Herring (Faotleag), L. canus, 
Common Gull (Maoileag Bheg), and L. tridactylus, Kittiwake 
(Ruideag.) Of these the last is the most abundant, and the 
L. canus the least so. The kittiwake, unlike some of the 
others, is a social bird, and occupies the breeding-places, which 
