FOOD FOR SEA-BIRDS. 459 



lions; and allowing a square yard for each burrow, the 

 space covered would be something more than twenty- 

 four and a half square miles, or nearly fifteen thousand 

 six hundred and eighty acres of ground! 



And though in such cheerless solitudes, man would 

 soon perish for want of sustenance, living food seems to- 

 be, placed there by Providence to a greater extent than 

 in any other known parts of the habitable globe. Count- 

 less as are the myriads of these birds, still more count- 

 less, by millions and millions of figures, are the lesser 

 marine beings on which they feed. Some idea may be 

 formed of their abundance, by calculating the length of 

 time that would be requisite for a certain number of per- 

 sons to count the quantity contained in one square mile 

 of sea-water. Allowing that one person could count a 

 million in seven days, which is barely possible, it has 

 been calculated that no less than eighty thousand per- 

 sons should have started at the creation of the world, 

 nearly six thousand years ago, to complete the calcu- 

 lation to the present time! And, if passing beyond 

 the consideration of the actual numbers, we reflect that 

 each of these minute beings has not only life, but a 

 body wonderfully made, with instincts and senses pecu- 

 liar to each, how infinitely beyond the power of our 

 imagination to conceive, is that great and overruling 

 Power, ivJio hath measured the waters in the hollow of his 

 hand, and meted out the heavens with a span. 



