Ailsa Craig and its Birds. 115 



elements of beauty. The air-worn precipices, as seen about 

 sunrise, when the long yellow rays come streaming across the 

 water, lighting up the perches of the sea-fowl, are gleaming 

 with innumerable birds ; and, as these pure white figures con- 

 trast with the rusty background, every object tells in the 

 picture. From base to peak these cliffs are occupied by long 

 lines of guillemots and razorbills, and huddled groups of 

 gannets and kittiwakes; myriads of puffins stud the fallen 

 fragments reaching to the water's edge, a curious effect being 

 added by the tree mallows, throwing a purple tinge on the face 

 of the rock ; while over all, the green slopes which carry the 

 eye to the cloud-capped summit are covered with the greater 

 sea-gulls — -these splendid birds appearing, from a distance, like 

 large white flowers amongst the grass. 



Seen at break of day, therefore, few objects could be more 

 impressive to a naturalist than this prodigious bird-hive, where 

 many thousands of its feathered natives are in sight at one 

 view, before the masses break up and wing their flight to the 

 surrounding sea : it can only be exceeded at sunset, when these 

 multitudes return for the night, the craig being then invested 

 with a solemn splendour which words can never do justice to. 



Yet ninety years ago Pennant, who landed upon Ailsa in 

 the month of June, called it a scene of horror, and wondered 

 why thrushes could exert their melodies in such a place as 

 cheerfully as they did in the groves of Herefordshire ; over- 

 looking the fact that these were Ailsa-born throstles, shouting 

 with glee, and making the columns and halls of their rocky 

 home resound with a mavis 7 welcome ! 



On the south-west side of the rock the tidal waves have 

 rolled and polished the stones so as to form a rough kind of 

 beach, on which a landing can be safely effected. The visitor 

 is here welcomed by the keeper and his dogs — a group not the 

 less picturesque by a continued residence, summer and winter, 

 in their lonely kennel. One cannot help thinking of this modern 

 Crusoe being troubled occasionally in his sea-girt abode by the 

 waves in stormy seasons roaring to one another in the night- 

 time, and flinging themselves with a crashing sound at his very 

 door ; but in answer to our inquiry, he declared that once only 

 did he feel solitary, and that was when something went wrong 

 with his eight-day clock ; the familiar ticking having ceased, he 

 became conscious, he said, of the " noise outside." 



Proceeding by a rugged path along the base of the cliffs, 

 it is possible to make a circuit of the island, a task, however, 

 by no means easy to accomplish, the distance being computed 

 at three miles, over a mass of angular rocks, which have fallen 

 from the upper ridges, and now lie piled in terrible confusion 

 to a height, in some places, of 300 lest. As the road ceases 



