2910 Birds. 



served, neither the razor-bill nor the kittiwake has recourse, for such 

 a purpose, to a locality of this description. 



On standing at the foot of these lowering and gigantic precipices, 

 and firing a gun, the scene which is presented to the spectator is ani- 

 mated and striking in no ordinary degree. As he looks up, he sees 

 whole rows of birds starting simultaneously from the ledges between 

 him and the summit. On throwing themselves from their nest, they 

 instinctively make their legs to diverge as widely as possible, forming, 

 in this manner, a sort of base or rudder to steady themselves in their 

 descent, and to counteract the weight of their head. This position 

 they preserve till they have reached that particular level at which 

 they intend to commence their onward flight. They then draw their 

 legs together, stretch them out behind, and advance outward to 

 sea with extreme vigour and rapidity, and in a straight direction from 

 the precipice from which they have been aroused. And such a sight 

 cannot but be extremely amusing, as well as interesting to those who 

 have been informed in grave and authoritative works on Natural 

 History, that the birds before them, — the guillemot, the razor-bill, and 

 the puffin, — are either utterly incapable of flight at all, or at least can 

 only continue, with infinite awkwardness and difficulty, to splash 

 along the surface of the water.* They will now have ocular and 



* For example, Temminck in the present day is a leading authority, not indeed in 

 the investigation of philosophical affinities and of natural systems in groups of three 

 and of five divisions, — in the establish men t of new genera, and in the multiplica- 

 tion of learned and long, sounding names; but, beyond all doubt, in the accurate and 

 minute description of the different appearances of plumage which are exhibited by 

 one and the same bird, at different seasons of the year, and at different periods of its 

 existence, — in reducing, in this manner, the uumber of supposed and established spe- 

 cies, — in the unravelling and simplifying of synonyms, — and, generally, in the state- 

 ment of facts, which are to be derived from the contents of a museum, as well as of 

 those which he has himself witnessed in regard to the habits and migrations of the 

 feathered race. And it will be acknowledged, it is imagined, by every candid student 

 of Nature, that, in these respects, his merits are eminently conspicuous; and that the 

 services which he has rendered to Ornithology are of the most extensive and important 

 character. And yet, on the birds to which we are directing our attention, he has, 

 among others, the following observations. Of the guillemot he says, " leur vol est de 

 tres-courte duree, et toujours en effleurant la surface des eaux. Pour atteindre a 

 leurs nids, qu'ils placent le long des rochers escarpes, a une tres haute elevation, ils 

 sautillent et voltigent d'une pointe a l'autre : " — " their flight is of very short duration, 

 and is always performed by grazing the surface of the waters. In order to reach their 

 nests, which they place among steep rocks at a very lofty elevation, they hop and flut- 

 ter from one point to the other." Of the puffins he remarks, " les oiseaux de ce genre 

 volent moins que les guillemots ; cependant ils ne sout point prives de celte faculte, et 



