106 OENITHOLOGICAL EAMBLES. 



engaged, or watched their comrades rising like Long- 

 fellow's seaweed, 



" From the tumbling surf, that buries 



The Orkneyan skerries, 

 Answering the hoarse Hebrides : 

 And from wrecks of ships, and drifting 



Spars, uplifting 

 On the desolate, rainy seas." 



" These poor birds suffer severely when, during and 

 after a continued gale, the Atlantic rolls in its 

 enormous billows, dashing them against the headlands, 

 and scouring with their fury the sounds and creeks* 

 As far as the eye can reach, the ocean boils and 

 heaves, presenting one boundless field of foam, the 

 spray from the summits of the waves sweeping along 

 the waste like drifted snow: no sign of life is to 

 be seen, save when a gull, labouring hard to bear 

 itself up against the blast, hovers overhead, or 

 darts by like a meteor. If, at such a season, the 

 haunts of the cormorants are visited, they will be 

 found huddled together in their caves and crevices, 

 perishing with hunger, and their numbers daily 

 thinning by death. If, indeed, they could venture out, 

 and bear the buffeting of the storm, they would still 

 fail in procuring food ; for as, in fishing, these birds 

 always carry their heads under water, in order that, 

 with their keen, clear, and beautiful eye, they may 



