140 Sea ^ Shore Birds 



denly in a fluttering wounded way from the air above, 

 close to me. 



Looking up, I saw a peregrine in the act of 

 following his prey, when he caught sight of me, and 

 swerved off. 



That same day, too, I noticed in the distance a 

 bird with an unfamiliar undulating flight. Marking 

 it on a rock on which it settled, my delight was great 

 when, on levelling my field-glasses at it, I discovered 

 a hoopoe ; evidently on its migration, perhaps to the 

 mainland, there in all probability to be shot by some 

 destructive land-lubber. 



On this island, bare of all shrubs and trees, the bird 

 was most conspicuous. 



Here, too, there were wrens, meadow pipits, and 

 rock pipits, whose nests I found. 



In the centre of the island, where the bracken 

 grows, was a large clamorous colony of lesser black- 

 backed gulls ; their pretty mottled brown eggs in twos 

 and threes, all over the place. 



Walking through this guUery, the birds rise up 

 and wheel overhead, their snowy breasts, yellow bills, 

 and dark grey wings set off against the blue of the sky. 



" Meow-meow ! Keau, keau," they cry, and settle 

 down again, one after the other, as you walk away 

 from their individual nests. 



There are some herring-gulls amongst them, and 

 two or three pairs of marauding greater black-backs. 

 A few graceful little terns, lately arrived from more 

 southerly climes, are skimming about, with a curiously 

 buoyant and sculling flight. 



