The Zoologist — November, 1866. 493 



Bui let us accompany our author to the gusty summit of the Black 

 Craig, and look down, with dizzy and bewildered brain, on the birds 

 nesting on its sea-face. The descri]ition is true to Nature. 



The Black Craig. — "Just as my head appeared above the topmost 

 brow, my eyes were greeted with a pleasant sight. All the more lofty 

 ledges of this most horrid cliff" were the breeding-places of the herring 

 gull, which 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 seething on the 

 rocks below — far, far in the dizzy distance. The smooth, short, sheep- 

 nibbled, slippery turf slopes, for some yards distant, down towards the 

 sudden precipitousness of the crag, so that with a brisk wind your 

 footing, in such a situation, becomes unpleasantly uncertain. 



" On the first undoubted evidence of your unprivileged intrusion, the 

 birds, simultaneously taking flight in myriads and myriads, fill the air 

 around with their wild and multitudinous cries, sailing in whirling 

 circles round your head in a manner that' cannot fail to call forth the 

 envy and admiration of a pinionless biped — causing by their intricate 

 and airy evolutions a perceptible dizziness of brain as you peer into 

 regionless space above. 



"1 have repeatedly noticed upon these occasions that these birds never 

 place themselves in such a position that, were you to fire and kill one, 

 he would fall upon the land upon which you stand. The whole time 

 that I remained upon this spot, with this vast assemblage of sea-fowl 

 so close and noisy, I could not have shot a single specimen but would 

 have fallen into the sea below ; consequently I did not fire at all. On 

 a subsequent visit to the spot, I found a pair of peregrines breeding in 

 the face of the cliff". Their young were evidently hatched, as the 

 sharp, shrill, c/tee/).' cheep! cheep! of the female as she continually 

 disappeared and returned with food, dropping like a ston^ over the 

 edge of the rock, and her rapid gliding motions beautifully helmed by 

 her spreading tail, fully tended to confirm. The effect of the sunset 

 upon her wing-coverls and tail -feathers, as she threw over to the light, 

 was very curious and rich." — p. 39, 



Let us hasten on to Hoy Island, so familiar in name to all our 

 ornithologists. It is really refreshing to see that some of our sea- 

 birds yet remain to us, and that the fate of the lamented gare-fowl is 

 an exception rather than a rule. 



