Wanderings of a Naturalist 



gull rushes at him with evil intent. The cormorant now makes 

 desperate efforts to swallow his catch, and this he does suc- 

 cessfully before the gull can reach him. His voracious 

 appetite still unsatisfied, he dives afresh to search for further 

 victims. 



Once clear of the harbour entrance, we begin to feel the 

 long swell coming in from the south-east, but running as we 

 are before the wind, the air is almost calm. Ahead of us 

 the fishing boats from Seahouses are lying at their long lines, 

 the heavy swell from time to time entirely hiding the craft 

 from view. A Scottish steam drifter, bound for her home 

 port in the Moray Firth, her fishing at Yarmouth ended, 

 passes north between the Inner Fames and the mainland, 

 her mainsail set to catch the breeze, and grey smoke trailing 

 from her funnel. Never so it is said on the Northumbrian 

 coast have so many Scottish herring boats passed by, all 

 steaming north, as during the fortnight before this day of 

 which I write, and their number must have well exceeded a 

 thousand. 



Bird life is plentiful. A flock of godwits fly swiftly 

 by, seeming like miniature curlew, except that as they pass 

 it can be seen that their bills lack the downward curve of the 

 latter bird, and that their flight is more swerving. Scoters 

 hurry singly and in bunches over the surface of the sea, or 

 settle in flocks on the water, and a red-throated diver in winter 

 plumage wings its way past us, making for some favourite 

 fishing ground. 



Our course takes us about half a mile to the south'ard 

 of the island known as Inner Fame, with lighthouse, auto- 

 matic in its working, perched on the top of a rock on which 

 the surf is now breaking in white cascades of spray. Passing 

 the Brownsman, we see several young grey seals lying on the 

 rocks, one of their number, from its cream-coloured coat, 

 being apparently of a very tender age. Almost joined to the 

 south end of the Brownsman are three flat-topped rocks 

 the well-known Pinnacles. Here in summer thousands of 



200 



