500 INCREDIBLE NUMBERS OF SEA-FOWL. 



" Their numbers are so great," M. Debes informs us, " that 

 when they fly out from the rocks where they are located, they 

 hide the sun like a cloud, and the noise of their wings makes 

 a roaring in the air like a storm." 



Pontoppidan again, when treating of the Ornithology of 

 his native country, says : " This is certainly one of those 

 bounties, not sufficiently regarded, that God has bestowed on 

 Norway, particularly the western side ; which, with its number- 

 less harbours, creeks, islands, high cliffs, hollow mountains 

 and caves, is fortified, by the wise and good Creator, as a 

 particular refuge and asylum for an incomprehensible, and 

 indeed almost incredible number of fowl ; which sometimes 

 are observed out at sea, at a distance of two or three (Nor- 

 wegian) miles, in such large flights, that they obscure the 

 heavens, and one would imagine all the sea-fowl of the uni- 

 verse were gathered together in one flock." 



Immense as are the numbers of fowl on the Norwegian 

 coast, they would seem to be equalled, if not surpassed, in 

 places on our own. Lord Huntingfield told me, for in- 

 stance, that once when on a shooting excursion near to 

 Flamborough Head, Yorkshire where the cliffs rise nearly 

 perpendicular to a very great height from the sea, for a distance 

 of about five miles the puffins, razor-bills, guillemots, and 

 the like, were, to use his own words, so incalculable that being 

 in the centre of five hundred swarms of bees would give a 

 very inadequate idea of their numbers ; that their party on 

 this occasion consisted of five all provided with a second 

 gun and that for three consecutive days each man fired 

 away eight pounds of powder ; that though many of the dead 

 birds were taken into their own boats, the greater part of the 

 slain were picked up by two or three other boats closely 





