270 
POPULAR HISTORY OP BIRDS. 
To any one who can derive pleasure from observing the 
habits of birds^ and seeing them in their own wild native 
haunts^ one of their larger breeding-places must afford a 
pleasure which few things can give. I shall never forget 
the sensations of delight with which I have myself visited 
some of those in Shetland; the wild magnificence of the 
rocks^ beautifully tinted here and there with many-coloured 
lichens^ was alone sufficient to excite feelings of the most 
intense enjoyment^ and far more so when peopled with tens 
of thousands of these interesting beings^ covering their dark 
and barren sides^ from the sea upwards to a thousand feet 
above its deep blue waves, each species occupying its own 
particular position ; the kittiwakes first filling the ledges of 
the rock at a few feet from the surface of the water ; the 
guillemots, the razor-bills, and the puffins next above them; 
and, high over all, the greater and lesser black-backed and 
herring gulls. The multitudes passing around you in their 
busy flight, in strong contrast to each other, — from the 
slow, majestic, eagle-like soar of the greater black-backed 
gull, to the rapid, short-winged, bustling flight of the puffin 
— the various mingled cries of the difl'erent species — the 
loud bark of the greater black-backed gull — ^the distinctly 
repeated cry, which has given its name to the kittiwake — 
