From Fox's Earth 



area they probably cross. Perhaps it would be 

 closer to the truth to say that one grades into the 

 other. In the latitude of the Forth, it is hard to 

 tell whether there be Arctic terns or no. While 

 one naturalist asserts that they abound, another 

 is quite as sure that they are absent. Both may 

 be right, and the truth somewhere between them, 

 as it is between most disputants. It may be a 

 transition area. Eggs are found of all inter- 

 mediate shades and sizes. I have watched a 

 wiseacre, after robbing the nests, lay them out in 

 two separate piles, when one pile would have 

 done for both. 



The cliffs, and the water which washes round 

 their base, teem, as do the voes. The sea-air 

 flashes with wings ; the surface of the sea is 

 broken with the diving. On the cliffs, forms 

 jostle for place. What abounding life is there ! 

 Where the kittiwakes can scarce find room on 

 the rock ledges for their dainty young, with the 

 black half-ring round their neck ; where puffins 

 bob ; and cormorants sit, with the still, sullen 

 gravity of pieces of rock. Any softening of the 

 rude majesty of coast into shelly strand is a haunt 

 of countless ringed plovers. 



I have a photograph of one of our number 

 bringing in a pair of rabbits he had just shot for 

 dinner. Older denizens than the white hare, 

 their date is unknown. On a sea-isolated rock, 

 little more than an acre in extent, and scantily 



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