WATER-FOWL. 



585 



grandeur of the scene, and turn the mind to 

 HIM who is the essence of all sublimity. 



Yet it often happens that the contempla- 

 tion of a sea-shore produces ideas of an hum- 

 bler kind, yet still not unpleasing. The vari- 

 ous arts of these birds to seize their prey, 

 and sometimes to elude their pursuers, their 

 society among each other, and their tender- 

 ness and care of their young, produce gentler 

 sensations. It is ridiculous also now and then 

 to see their various ways of imposing upon 

 each other. It is common enongh,for instance, 

 with the arctic gull, to pursue the lesser gulls 

 so long, that they drop their excrements 

 through fear, which the hungry hunter quick- 

 ly gobbles up before it ever reaches the 

 water. In breeding too they have frequent 

 contests ; one bird who has no nest of her 

 own, attempts to dispossess another, and puts 

 herself in the place. This often happens 

 among all the gull kind : and I have seen the 

 poor bird, thus displaced by her more pow- 

 erful invader, sit near the nest in pensive dis- 

 content, while the other seemed quite com- 

 fortable in her new habitation. Yet this 

 place of pre-eminence is not easily obtained; 

 for the instant the invader goes to snatch a 

 momentary sustenance, the other enters upon 

 her own, and always ventures another battle 

 before she relinquishes the justness of her 

 claim. The contemplation of a cliff thus 

 covered with hatching-birds, affords a very 

 agreeable entertainment ; and as they sit 

 upon the ledges of the rocks, one above 

 another, with their white breasts forward, 

 the whole group has not unaptly been com- 

 pared to an apothecary's shop. 



These birds, like all others of the rapaci- 

 ous kind, lay but few eggs; and hence, in 

 many places, their number 'is daily seen to 

 diminish. The lessening of so many rapa- 

 cious birds may, at first sight, appear a bene- 

 fit to mankind ; but when we consider how 

 many of the natives of our islands are sustain- 

 ed by their flesh, either fresh or salted, we 

 shall find no satisfaction in thinking that these 

 poor people may in time lose their chief sup- 

 port. The 



jull, in 



builds on the ledges o 

 one egg to three, in 

 grass and sea-weed. 



eneral, as was said, 

 rocks, and lays from 

 a nest formed of long 

 Most of the kind are 



fishy tasted, with black stringy flesh; yet the 



young ones are better food : and of these, 

 with several other birds of the penguin kind, 

 the poor inhabitants of our northern islands 

 make their wretched banquets. They have 

 been long used to no other food ; and even 

 salted gull -can be relished by those who 

 know no better. Almost all delicacy is a 

 relative thing ; and the man who repines at 

 the luxuries of a well-served table, starves 

 riot for want, but from comparison. The 

 luxuries of the poor are indeed coarse to us, 

 yet still they are luxuries to those ignorant of 

 better; and it is probable enough that a 

 Kilda or a Feroe man may be found to exist, 

 outdoing Apicius himself in consulting the 

 pleasures of the table. Indeed, if it be true 

 that such meat as is the most dangerously 

 earned is the sweetest, no men can dine so 

 luxuriously as these, as none venture so 

 hardily in the pursuit of a dinner. In Jacob- 

 son's History of the Feroe islands, we have 

 an account of the method in which those 

 birds are taken; and 1 will deliver it in his 

 own simple manner. 



" It cannot be expressed with what pains 

 and danger they take these birds in those 

 high steep cliffs, whereof many are two hun- 

 dred fathoms high. But there are men apt 

 by nature, and fit for the work, who take them 

 usually in two manners: they either climb 

 from below into these high promontories, that 

 are as steep as a w all ; or they let themselves 

 down with a rope from above. When they 

 climb from below, they have a pole five or 

 six ells long with an iron hook at the end, 

 which they that are below in the boat, or on 

 the cliff, fasten unto the man's girdle, helping 

 him up thus to the highest place where he 

 can get footing; afterwards they also help up 

 another man; and thus several climb up as 

 high as they possibly can ; and, where they 

 find difficulty, they help each other up, by 

 thrusting one another up with their poles. 

 When the first hath taken footing, he draws 

 the other up to him, by the rope fastened to 

 his waist ; and so they proceed, till they come 

 to the place where the birds build. They 

 there go about as well as Uiey can in those 

 dangerous places ; the one holding the rope 

 at one end, and fixing himself to the rock ; 

 the other going at the other end from place 

 to place. If it should happen that he chaiv 



