The Zoologist — July, 1870. 2217 



marked alone by the boiling and seething of the troubled waters, 

 others again partially immersed at intervals, as each succeeding roller 

 marching in swells up along their black slippery flanks in one 

 unbroken sheet of pale emerald, threatening to bury them altogether, 

 to rush back again broken and disrupted from the splintered crag in 

 cataracts and streams of molten silver. At the mouth of the deep and 

 narrow valleys and indentations intersecting this coast line, are 

 clusters and rows of fishermen's cottages— the wonder is that they are 

 not washed away in some stormy winter's night: within a small 

 L-shaped pier, constructed of immense stones, are moored the luggers, 

 remarkable for their immense beam and great hoist : they are excellent 

 weather boats, keeping the sea often in heavy gales : how they succeed 

 in running into the harbours, almost enclosed, as they are, by these 

 black hungry-looking reefs, is marvellous. The sea on this coast in 

 winter was described as awfully sublime, and judging from the pools 

 of salt water far up the rocks, and the worn and polished appearance 

 of the cliffs themselves two hundred feet above high water mark, 

 together with the position of many water-worn boulders, fully 

 confirmed all we were told. I picked up two specimens of the ugly 

 lump-fish [Cyclopterus lumpus) and a dead gannet, and observed 

 many rock pipits and wheatears, and a redshank. Leaving the shore near 

 Burnmouth we had a steep pull to reach the summit. Between this 

 and Eyemouth were hundreds of herring gulls, some scores of these 

 marine vultures sailing beneath us along the face of the precipices : 

 to gaze down on these really noble birds, poised or floating on 

 motionless wing across some deep twilight chasm, they look the very 

 emblem of peace and rest : hundreds of feet below we catch glimpses 

 of those awful skerries and black crags, and the wild restless sea, the 

 thunder of whose waves at this height has a strange subdued and 

 muffled sound, like the booming of cathedral bells heard afar. The 

 herring gull is here as common as the lesser blackbacked on the 

 Northumberland coast ; we saw very few of the latter, but of the first 

 both mature and immature birds were everywhere plentiful, both along 

 the coast as well as inland. Although many were sitting together on 

 ledges of the precipices, I was unable to determine whether or not 

 they have any breeding-station here. 



May 13. Pulled up the Tweed for some miles to see the salmon 

 fisheries. In consequence of the extreme drought and lowness of the 

 water but few fish had been taken : we saw many hauls at the various 

 river-side stations, the only result of which, excepting a few large 



SECOND SERIES — VOL. V. 2 M 



