176 WILD BIRDS 



lie down on the cliff near Canty Bay and view the 

 rock just over the edge of one of the golf greens, 

 the blue of the sea in which it is set glows with an 

 intense transparent look ! It is like that blue which 

 sometimes lights up on the neck and back of the 

 swan seen through glasses in certain states of light, 

 but it may be intenser. This blue spreads or runs 

 from the sea into the air above the sea, reminding 

 me of the effect of a great blaze of poppies in July, 

 the red of which also runs into the air above the 

 flowers. The green, over which this blue is seen, 

 is lit up in the same way ; it glows with the same 

 intense transparent appearance, the very opposite 

 of the bright green of larches and birches in spring, 

 which is opaque and pigment-like. 



Such December colouring is only got by viewing 

 the thing at a certain angle, and with one's back to 

 the sun ; nor does it last any length of time, as the 

 colouring of summer seas lasts, but it is quite as real 

 and wonderful. The sky too on these very short 

 December afternoons, if one looks towards the Bass 

 and the Fifeshire coast in the far background, has 

 those faint and most delicate tinctures which are seen 

 in the after-glow of midsummer eves. 



The Bass, with Ailsa Crag and one or two rocks 

 on the other side of Scotland, is I believe the only 

 nesting station of the gannet or solan-goose on 

 British coasts. The whole immense population of 

 gannets, however, has left the Bass by December. 

 I saw not a single bird they were scattered 

 along the English coasts, some thousands of them 



