THE BIRDS OF IONA AND MULL. 269 



upon the rough, tall, surf -surrounded stacks, climbing barefoot along 

 the giddy heights, and bringing home whole hampers of eggs, in which 

 we not only revel for some time after, but preserve, so as to be 

 available for salad and other such purposes even up to winter. Apropos 

 of giddy heights, I may give my experience as an old sailor and top- 

 midshipman for the usual number of years, that mere height has 

 nothing to do with the feeling of giddiness, but it is the feeling of 

 insecurity. As to height, who could wish to be much higher than 

 seated on the (say) main-royal yard of a line-of-battle ship, where, with 

 his one arm looped round the lift (a good stout piece of man-of-war's 

 rope), a look-out man feels as secure as if seated in an arm-chair, with 

 his three other limbs free for any other use ; but let him hear the 

 order far down below on deck of " Let fly royal sheets and halliards " 

 by some officer so careless as not to observe a man in his position, and 

 his sense of danger would immediately produce a dizzy qualm such as 

 we call giddiness. I have often been hanging on the face of a beetling 

 crag without the least such feeling, until a loose stone which I grip, 

 and about to throw my whole weight on, gives way, crumbles into 

 fragments, and goes rattling down the deep profound, till the noise 

 grows faint in the distance, and then such an unpleasant sensation 

 seizes one somewhere about the pit of the stomach, something between 

 vertigo and sea-sickness, or intense giddiness, which, if not manfully 

 overcome, would infallibly send one toppling down headlong with 

 palsied, nerveless limbs. Meanwhile the gulls, disturbed by the intru- 

 sion of the egg-hunters, dash about like angry hornets, filling the air 

 with their clamorous rage, adding very much to the danger of the 

 climber's position if he allows their threatening appearance to affect 

 his nerves. I have sometimes left a town-bred visitor, who chose 

 rather to accept the post of boat-keeper to risking his neck in the 

 perilous rude ascent, and on my return have found him much discom- 

 fited by the audacity of the enraged birds, who actually cuffed his 

 ears with their wings. One declared he would never be left in such a 

 position again alone, at least without a loaded gun; "they used such 

 dreadful language and such threatening gestures," he said, "that 

 though I retorted by shouting out opprobrious epithets at them, and 

 whirling the boat-hook round my head, yet I felt persuaded that they 

 would soon have dragged me out of the boat." He amused us further 

 by adding that at last they used the most extraordinary artillery in 



