220 COUNTRY ESSAYS, 



gravity is as amazing as it would be to see the Upper House of 

 Convocation playing in a cricket match while wearing their 

 episcopal aprons. Especially numerous around us, as they 

 rock on the waves, are the razor-bills (Alca torda). Their mode 

 of swimming and diving much resembles that of the guillemot, 

 and in shape and plumage they are much like the bird, but 

 even the most careless of observers would at once distinguish 

 them by their curious black bill, with its three or four transverse 

 flutings, of which the middle one is white. 



All these birds in vast numbers, as we approached the head- 

 land, screamed and clanged and flew under the windy walls, or 

 swam and dived and fluttered over, around, and beside us, with 

 a bewildering frequency and uproar. The sun came out, and 

 the waves sparkled and dashed in white curls of foam on the 

 little beach strewn with huge fragments of chalk, and a more 

 enlivening scene could hardly be found. We might have been 

 Pisthetaerus seeking his fortune in the kingdom of birds. 

 Certainly the citizens of King Epops were responding to his 

 call, 



" Hoop ! hoop ! 

 Come in a troop, 

 Come at a call, 

 One and all, 

 Birds of a feather 

 All together ; 



Birds of a humble gentle bill, 

 Smooth and shrill, 

 Dieted on seeds and grain, 

 Rioting on the furrowed plain, 

 Pecking, hopping, 

 Picking, hopping ! "* 



All this time but a couple of guillemots have fallen to the 

 sportsmen's guns, so it is determined to lower a boat and let 

 one of them be rowed towards the cliffs, while the Firefly is 



* Right Hon. J. H. Frere's Translation of Aristophane's Avcs. Pickering, 1840 



