PERILS OP CLIFF-SCALING. 13 



prey, make their homes in holes or niches on the ver- 

 tical faces of cliffs. As a rule, these crags overhang 

 the surf, or some frightful depth of mountain chasm, 

 and are totally inaccessible from below. In some 

 cases, like that of the East Indian edible swallow 

 and several arctic birds, caves in the faces of lofty 

 seaward cliffs are occupied. Then the problem of 

 how to get at their homes is rendered doubly diffi- 

 cult, and its solving extremely perilous. 



If there are no means of climbing up to such nests, 

 of course the only way is to be let down. Boyish 

 enthusiasm leaps at this prospect, as savoring of a 

 daring not unmixed with nerve and skill very attrac- 

 tive to the imagination, and thus wise precautions of 

 safety are often omitted. No person, for instance, 

 ought ever to attempt to go over a cliff alone, yet it 

 has been done ; nor should any one allow himself to 

 be lowered without being so secured to the noose or 

 seat in which he rests at the end of the rope, that, 

 should any accident deprive him of his strength 

 or self-control, he would not fall from his seat. 

 Sudden and unaccountable dizziness sometimes at- 

 tacks the hardest and most experienced heads, due 

 to some peculiar, unsuspected state of the nervous 

 system. A very small pebble falling a long distance 

 and striking the head of the bird's-nester might easily 

 produce insensibility, and there is always danger of 



