28 LUNDY ISLAND. 



clined plane, extending, perhaps, half-a-mile down to 

 the sea-cliffs, composed of numberless hillocks of red 

 earth, on which lie, heaped irregularly, and partially 

 imbedded in the soil, great boulders of the granite 

 rock. On these, on the hillocks, and in the hollows 

 between, sit the birds, indifferent to our presence, 

 until within two or three yards of them, when they 

 turn the large liquid eye towards us, as if demanding 

 the meaning of the unwonted intrusion. If we avoid 

 sudden motion, we may approach still closer ; but 

 generally at about this degree of proximity the little 

 group congregated on the particular stone or hillock 

 leap up, spread their short feeble wings, and fly with 

 a rapid laborious beating of the air, out to seaward. 

 The flight is painfully feeble at first, but presently 

 gathers strength and becomes more forcible, though 

 always fluttering. 



The great congregation of birds begins just here- 

 abouts ; the cover of fern to the southward, which we 

 have been skirting, is not suitable to their habits ; but 

 it extends forward as far as the eye can reach, and 

 is not then bounded, but spreads on around the north 

 extremity of the island, far down on the western side. 



The air, too, is filled with them like a cloud. 

 Thousands and ten thousands are flying round in a 

 vast circle or orbit, the breadth of which reaches from 

 about where we stand to half-a-mile seaward. They 

 reminded me strongly, with their little wings stretched 

 at right angles to their bodies, painted in black against 

 the sky, of the representations we see in old astronomi- 



