THE FIRTH OF FORTH. 23 



he seemed ashamed of himself ; as for the old 

 whaler, he regarded sea, sky, wind, everything 

 with utter contempt, except the provision basket. 



In sailing over to the May, the boat might 

 have been freighted with the commoner kind of 

 sea-birds, but we only shot a few for the boat- 

 men. A pair of solans crossed the bow, when 

 my son dropped both a right and left shot 

 and they were cleverly netted as the boat sailed 

 past. A third Hew by the stern, which I killed, 

 but being unwilling to lose time by tacking, we 

 left it on the waves. We declined to shoot again 

 at these geese, which may almost be termed pri- 

 vate property. 



The breeze had freshened, and the waves were 

 high enough to make shooting difficult, and lands- 

 men squeamish. The boat was, however, abreast 

 of the south-west corner of the May, and we 

 were about to hug the land in a search of the 

 western rocks for cormorants and the black guil- 

 lemot. The west wind, so friendly in the morn- 

 ing, was now a bitter foe, for it drove the surf 

 upon the rocks in great booming billows, making 

 it no easy task to discern the difference of sea- 



