KITTIWAKES AND A GANNET, NORTH BIRD ROCK 



"STRONG WINGS MAKE THEM MASTERS OF THE ELEMENTS" 



PREFACE 



THE above picture may serve to suggest the feelings 

 which have animated me in securing the contents 

 of this volume, of enthusiastic love of the out-door 

 world and keen delight in its free, wild life, a spirit which 

 I hope may not have been too fugitive to bear the transfer 

 from nature to the printed page. It is a scene instinct with life. 

 Forth from the wave-lashed cliff and out over the heaving, 

 restless deep fly the wild, hardy birds of the sea. As they 

 launch into the cold breeze which sweeps over the lonely 

 northern ocean and wheel off before it with careless abandon, 



