8 AN EAST COAST NATURALIST 



are gradually driven shorewards, where the breakers 

 complete their discomfiture. At such times feeble 

 birds may be observed making spasmodic efforts 

 to escape beyond the breaking surf, and occasion- 

 ally partially succeeding, only to be buffeted again 

 into the fatal breakers, and eventually thrown 

 ashore dead or incapacitated. I have seen wearied- 

 out birds sitting doubled up on the margin of the 

 highest wave-sweep. On occasion they would make 

 a strenuous effort and wildly scuttle into the wash 

 and get out again, and at chance times they have 

 taken wing, only to fall into the trough of the sea just 

 beyond the curl of the billows. After severe gales 

 I have found numbers strewn dead along the tide- 

 mark, feather-bedraggled and stiff-limbed. 



Guillemots found alive, and placed in an aviary, 

 invariably die. All that I have tried to coax back 

 into life and health have survived but a few hours, 

 or a day or two at the outside. Even birds taken 

 at sea under more favourable conditions cannot be 

 made to feed, and cramming seems of little use. 

 They scramble about for a while most awkwardly, 

 and in nearly every case are found, with wings 

 extended, dead upon their breasts next morning. 

 Birds taken from their native rocks, uninjured, even 



