SEA-FOWL AND THE STORM 23 



and bright orange star-weed, and thin ribbons of a 

 delicate sea-plant, so pale that it seemed to have grown 

 in dark sea-caves, beyond the reach of sunlight. Mixed 

 with the weed were bunches of orange eggs of sea^ 

 creatures, while jointed roots of mares'-tail washed from 

 the clay cliff, and one or two big spiny-backed " sea- 

 mice," as a fisherman called the big sea-slugs which are 

 now and again washed up by the storms. 



Beyond the bay, round the point, and under the 

 chalk precipices, the storm had cleared away the deep 

 beds of rotting sea-weed which usually lie there, and 

 scoured and cleaned every rock by the batter of the 

 large chalk boulders which are here rattled in the 

 surge. 



The evening after the gale we lay till dark beneath 

 the crag, and watched the demeanour of the birds after 

 the lull of the storm. Apparently they spent the 

 whole day in fishing, in order to make up for their 

 fast during the storm. Not a single cormorant and 

 very few gulls were visible until it was dusk, though 

 the peregrine falcons were flitting from point to point 

 on the cliff face, and clinging to projecting lumps of 

 chalk. When the cormorants did come in they flew in 

 very low and heavily, like enormous bats coming out 

 of the gloom in which the sky was only distinguished 

 by a line of dull red glow from the dark uneasy sea. 

 One of our party, who had done great things among 

 the ducks in the harbour the evening before, was 

 anxious to shoot a cormorant and make " scart soup," 

 which is declared by some who have tried it to be as 



