126 ORNITHOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 



with a voyage to Iceland, at an earlier season of a 

 future year. I have been disappointed in obtaining 

 some few species, such as the common skua (Lestris 

 catarractus) and the Fulmar petrel (Procellaria 

 glacialis), which I had good reason to believe might 

 have been found breeding in some of the localities I 

 have mentioned ; to say nothing of our more rare and 

 occasional visitants among the Larida, as the ivory or 

 Iceland gulls, &c. I can, however, most truly aver 

 that this, my first essay to become more intimately 

 acquainted with my feathered companions, has been 

 replete with the utmost enjoyment, by introducing to 

 my notice and appreciation the more ragged beauties 

 of our North British scenery in some of its wildest and 

 most unfrequented spots. It was therefore with no 

 small reluctance, that, bidding adieu to the Orcadian 

 group, I returned to Thurso on the morning of the 

 k 28th of June, and proceeded thence by the Hamburg 

 steamer to Aberdeen. I there took the train to the fair 

 city of Perth ; and, as I leant upon the parapet of its 

 bridge, in the quietude of a still warm evening, and 

 surveyed the noble Tay rolling majestically below, its 

 innumerable ripples sparkling with a thousand hues 

 along its pebbly bed, the contrast between the prose of 

 the bleaker north and the more poetical luxuriance of 

 the present scene was inexpressibly alluring. I here 

 noticed my old friends the blackheaded gulls, their 

 breeding duties probably ended, sailing about with 



