376 SWIMMERS. 



These birds abound in Norway and the Hebrides, partic- 

 ularly on some of the least accessible of the islands. Accord- 

 ing to Dr. Harvey, Bass Island, near Edinburgh, not more than 

 a mile in circumference, has in the months of May and June its 

 surface almost wholly covered with nests, eggs, and young birds, 

 so that it is scarcely possible to walk without treading on them ; 

 and the flocks of birds are so prodigious as, when in flight, to 

 darken the air like clouds, and their noise is so stunning that it 

 is scarcely possible to hear your next neighbor. Looking down 

 towards the sea from the top of the precipice, you see it on all 

 sides covered with multitudes of birds, swimming and chasing 

 their prey ; and if in sailing round the island you survey the 

 hanging cliffs, you may see on every crag or fissure of the 

 rocks numberless birds of various sorts and sizes ; and seen 

 in the distance, the crowding flocks passing continually to and 

 from the island can only be compared to a vast swarm of bees. 



The rocks of St. Kilda are no less frequented by the Gan- 

 nets, and Martin assures us that the inhabitants of that small 

 island consume annually no less than twenty- two thousand 

 young birds of this species, besides a vast quantity of their 

 eggs, these being, in fact, their principal support. This supply, 

 though spontaneous from nature, is not obtained without immi- 

 nent hazard of life to those who engage in procuring these birds 

 and their eggs ; as besides climbing difficult and almost inac- 

 cessible paths among the rocks beetling over the sea, they 

 sometimes lower each other down from above, by ropes in 

 baskets, to collect their game from the shelvings and fissures 

 of the rocks chosen by these sagacious birds. The young are 

 a favorite dish with the North Britons in general, and during 

 the season they are constantly brought from the Bass Isle to 

 Edinburgh. 



As might be supposed, the Gannets are in these islands 

 birds of passage, making their first appearance in the month 

 of March, continuing there till August or September, accord- 

 ing as the inhabitants take or leave their first egg ; but in 

 general, the time of breeding and departing appears to coincide 

 with the arrival of the herring and its migration out of those 



