ORNITHOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 43 



tuberating, craggy points, jutting out above your head 

 just sufficiently far to incapicitate you from calculating 

 your distance from the summit; while the scanty 

 indentations that have offered you a precarious footing 

 thus far are so few and far between, that to retrieve 

 your exact steps would be positively out of the 

 question. 



Extreme confidence is the secret of this style of 

 climbing. In tree-climbing, on the contrary, the pro- 

 fusion of lateral branches and the natural excrescences 

 where branches have or should have been, afford a 

 reasonable amount of protection in case the hand or 

 foot slips. Here, however, the uneven surface of the 

 rock affords little or no hold, and muscular pressure is 

 the only means of availing yourself of what there is. 

 Not to mention that these few available points which 

 the eye marks out, or the foot agreeably seizes, are, in 

 nine cases out of ten, bleached, weather-worn, or 

 cracked, and are consequently but too likely to cause 

 undue and precipitate retrogression. 



Having obtained my bird, which turned out to be a 

 female, and had probably a nest in the vicinity, though 

 I was quite unable to discover it, I set about com- 

 mencing my descent, which I also successfully accom- 

 plished, so far as gaining the original ledge was 

 concerned. Along this I had to pursue my course for 

 some distance before I could reach a more traversable 

 portion of the shore. After a few steps, I did not at 



