A Sea-Birds' Haunt 117 



tints of thrift, and heath, and stone-crop, and strewn 

 with blocks of granite, lying broadcast on the ground 

 or piled high like the rude monuments of barbaric 

 kings. 



Beyond are wide sweeps of dark-blue sea with pale 

 green shallows foaming white round a low line of 

 reef. And everywhere, on land, and sky, and wave, 

 are myriads of sea-fowl. 



It is the sea-birds' haunt. 



On every stone stands a group of puffins ; the ledges 

 of the cliff are outlined with the forms of innumerable 

 razor-bills and guillemots j scattered over the sea 

 thousands of drifting figures rock idly on the waves. 



On the sharp crags that skirt the slope herring gulls 

 are resting. Some rise as you draw near, their broad 

 wings bright against the pallid blue. Their flight is a 

 very triumph of the wing. They float and wheel, and 

 rise and fall with no perceptible beat of their long 

 pinions — only a turn of the glossy head or slight 

 movement of the broad, expanded tail. They sweep 

 slowly by, a few feet overhead, crying with discordant 

 notes that have, at times, a weird suggestion of Satanic 

 laughter. 



The herring gull is a powerful bird — a pirate, too, 

 shunned and dreaded by all the lesser toilers of the 

 sea, almost as much even as the raven. 



Scattered among the fern and heather of the little 

 glens that break the wall of cliff, many a broken 

 eggshell bears his robber's mark. Many a young 



