AND OTHER BIRDS 29 



fact, many of the tunnels so freely entered over- 

 night were in the morning found to be empty. 



I turned in, and for long lay ruminating over 

 the marvels of that evening flight, and listening 

 to the night so crammed with sound. At last, 

 with the wail of innumerable Petrels in my ears, 

 I fell asleep to wake again at earliest dawn, as 

 passengers instantly wake when during a long 

 sea trip the engines cease to throb. Something 

 had stopped, it was the sound of silence again 

 returned that had roused me. The growing 

 light had drawn the Petrels down their flapped 

 and wing-beaten paths ; to the very edge of the 

 cliffs had flowed their fluttering streams, runnels 

 like those, that never to reach the earth spill 

 themselves from the mountain heights of our 

 southern Sounds. The dawn had called like 

 God; at its bidding each tenant had stepped 

 from his dark tomb. It was the morning of the 

 Resurrection. No wood birds sang, a silence had 

 fallen on the earth blank as that of an extin- 

 guished star. In the chill of morn and after the 

 night of eager courtship a desolation brooded 

 over the empty land, as when the Lord shall have 

 called all living creatures to their last account, 

 when wealth of leaf in spring and weight of 

 autumn grain shall be no more known to the 

 generations of man. 



Late next evening Leask reappeared with 

 dismal tidings of weather prognostications and 

 strongly advised us to leave the island. We 

 .steamed off therefore, about half an hour earlier 

 than the beginning of the Petrel inflight. 



I was glad we had done so, for we saw another 

 phase of their life at this season of the year. 

 In our homeward journey we passed for miles 



