36 ORNITHOLOGICAL RAMBLES, 



shags, looking for the world like long-necked demons 

 speeding on an errand of death or torment to some 

 imprisoned soul. Steadily onward, let the wind be 

 high or low, like the arrows of remorseless fate, they 

 cleave the unresisting air, until, perceiving some 

 wandering shoal of coalfish or blenny, they halt upon 

 the swelling sea, and, after diving and fishing till their 

 voracious appetite is temporarily appeased, or their 

 craw well provided with fish, resume their unhallowed 

 progress to some favourite rock to digest at leisure their 

 unsavoury feast. A few ducks are to be seen at the 

 entrance of the bay, but most of them are already off 

 to the far north. 



I now passed a carious old dilapidated rain of a 

 church, with a walled churchyard crammed with 

 gravestones and large monuments, and evidently still 

 made use of as a burial ground. A very picturesque 

 little cove runs some way inland, a short distance 

 beyond this point. The rocky nature of the coast 

 ceases for awhile, and a smooth bed of sand at low 

 water tempts a few sea-birds here to feed. There were 

 only a few herring-gulls (Larus argentatus) of which I 

 shot one upon it as I passed. On my return it was 

 tenanted by oyster- catchers. The latter are far too 

 wary and wild a bird to be approached on ordinary 

 occasions. In the opposite distance, precipitous and 

 grand, majestic Hoy rears its proud and lofty head 

 1 138 feet above the sea ; while to the right, and in the 



