FROM EDINBURGH TO THE ANTARCTIC 167 
double topsails, that dwarf our little sticks to the size of 
matches. Almost all the vessels we could see had suffered 
from the Horn weather. But what interested me more 
than anything else was the strange bird-life round us ; 
hundreds of divers and ducks scurried over the dull green 
water, splashing and diving — waiting at times till we were 
nearly on the top of them before they moved away. 
Gulls and petrels flew from the shores and circled round 
our masts — strange, unfamiliar, silent birds, with a quaint, 
old-world look and odd colours, as if they had been 
designed for a pantomime, or had just flown out of a 
Noah's Ark. Some of them were the gigantic petrel, I 
think— big, clumsy birds, nearly as large as albatross, with 
coarse feathers of a raw chocolate colour, and big, yellowish 
beaks ; some of these birds were almost entirely white. 
Some of the gulls were like our black-backed gulls, with a 
band of red on their yellow beaks. There were also 
molly mauks, and a pretty gull of a French grey colour, 
with black wing-covers with white edges, and brilliant 
red beak and legs. Besides the petrel and gulls there 
were many kinds of divers and ducks, white-breasted 
shags, and several varieties of penguins. The last only 
showed their heads above water, as our cormorants some- 
times do at home. Sometimes schools of them leapt 
clean out of the water, making black-and-white half 
circles in the air, popping in again with hardly a splash. 
Such an island is a naturalist's paradise ; and already I 
beecin to regret that we shall have so little time to 
stay here. 
As we entered the loch we saw that the ships lying at 
