ORNITHOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 39 



as I dropped him on the rocks below. As he fell per- 

 fectly dead upon a dry sloping rock flat upon his back, 

 with his wings extended, I left him there until my 

 return to consolidate and stiffen. 



The bank now rises, step by step, upon basaltic per- 

 pendicular rock, and as I peered beyond its head 

 a flight of rock pigeons (Columba lima) darted from my 

 feet and vanished round a turn of the shore, too 

 suddenly for me to fire. I now crossed two trickling 

 rivulets and a stone wall, and then this bold and rugged 

 cliff shoots upwards from the earth in frowning 

 majesty. It is a considerable strain upon the lungs 

 to reach the top without a rest : the cries of a few gulls 

 sailing in the air far above, increasing as you labour 

 up the ascent in number and intensity, as the news is 

 gradually spread of your unceremonious intrusion upon 

 their places of selected abode. 



Just as my head appeared above the topmost brow, 

 mv eyes were greeted with a pleasant sight. All the 

 most lofty ledges of this most horrid cliff were the 

 breeding-places of the herring-gull, who tenanted them 

 in surprising numbers ; the birds dropping off as I 

 approached, with wings extended on the air, with 

 a grace and unaffected ease, that, if one could only 

 divest one's self of unpleasant associations, was elegant 

 and lovely to behold. Craning for a moment beyond 

 its edge, the dark blue heaving ocean swell was seeth- 

 ing on the rocks below far, far, in dizzy distance. 



