202 HILLSIDE, ROCK, AND DALE 



focus a nest, each breath taken and we naturally 

 take as few as possible has a choking sensation. 

 I do not know if the inventors of fiction have out- 

 done what we experienced in our morning's work ; 

 if not, this might give a new writer some inspiration. 

 It is worse than anyone would expect to find in any 



CORMORANTS' NESTS. FARNE ISLAND IN DISTANCE 



of Nature's byways. The smell is overpowering, 

 intolerable, sickening ; there are no words in oar 

 extensive vocabulary to describe it. What is it that 

 smells so horribly? Is it the rotting seaweed of 

 which the nests are composed, covered as they are 

 with droppings and portions of decaying fish ? 

 These partly account for the phenomenon, but one 



