THE PUFFIN. 
225 
motion, however great in reality, appears but slow ; nearer, 
groups of porpoises or grampuses may exhibit their dorsal fins 
above the surface as they proceed on their rolling course ; or aloft, 
the gannet majestically poise himself ere he strike into the deep. 
That beautiful sight, a “ play of gulls,” will doubtless be wit- 
nessed at one or more parts of the surface to which shoals of 
small fish have arisen. Landward, the rapid flight of innumerable 
little parties of guillemots, razorbills, and puffins, as they fly, 
chiefly in single file, to or from the cliffs, or over the sea, will be 
observed. In purity of hue, similar to, and in number less only 
than the flakes of a snow-shower, the gulls, roused off their eggs or 
young, appear from base to summit of the cliffs, while jetty cor- 
morants, with necks straight-outstretched, fly to their congregated 
nests. The blue rock-dove will be seen on wing to and from the 
caverns, and perhaps the dark-hued peregrine falcon, or the eagle, 
making a death-swoop in the vicinity of its eyrie. Any descrip- 
tion of the effect of the mingling voices of myriads of birds of 
various species, in such a scene, would be vain. 
On the 28th we had the gamekeeper at the Horn lowered 
down the precipitous cliffs to the eastward of Horn Head, to a 
nest of the sea-eagle, from which he brought up two eaglets ; — 
the particulars of the exploit have been described in Yol. I. 
p. 15. On the following day we went to the cliffs adjacent 
to the "eagle's eyrie, in the hope of procuring young peregrine 
falcons, but were unsuccessful, in consequence of the rock pro- 
jecting so much above the nest as to render it unapproachable : 
we saw the old pair of birds. A mile westward of the Head, a 
colony of cormorants ( Thalacrocorax carlo ) came in view, their 
nests being placed on the broad and flat top of a jutting rock, or 
“ bench,” as it is here called, on the sea-side of the Temple Brig. 
This “ temple ” is a rocky headland, standing out to sea, and 
pierced entirely through by a lofty arch whose base is washed by 
the ocean ; hence it bears the name of the Temple “ brig,” or 
bridge ; — the arch is sometimes called also “ the door ” of the 
Temple. 
As noted when looking down upon the colony at the dis- 
VOL. III. Q 
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