56 INTRODUCTION. 



these are more than proportionally numerous in 

 a Fauna so limited ; and while thousands in sum- 

 mer seek our precipitous coasts and headlands 

 as breeding stations, others scarcely less numerous 

 flock in winter from their more northern incubations, 

 and fill our bays and marine inlets. 



The contrast of these localities at the different 

 seasons is most striking ; rocks standing far in the 

 ocean's void, and precipices of the most dizzy height 

 to which all approach by land is cut off, possess a 

 dreary solitude for seven or eight months of the year; 

 a few cormorants seeking repose during the night, or 

 some gulls claiming a temporary shelter or resting- 

 place from the violence of the storm, are almost 

 the only and then but occasional tenants. In the 

 throng of the season of breeding, a very different 

 picture is seen : the whole rocks and sea and air 

 are one scene of animation, and the various groups 

 have returned to take up their old stations, and are 

 now employed in all the accessaries of incubation, 

 affording lessons to the ornithological student he 

 will in vain look for elsewhere ; the very rocks are 

 lighted up, and would seem to take a brightness 

 from the hurry around, while the cries of the inha- 

 bitants alone discordant, harmonise with the scene. 



During the same season, upon the low sandy or 

 muddy coasts, or extensive merses, where the tide 

 recedes for miles, and the only interruption on the 

 outline is the slight undulations of some mussel- 

 scalps, the dark colour of some bed of zostera con- 

 trasting against the long bright crest of the surf, or 



