IRatiue IRotes ; 
tEbe Selbovne Societ'^’s fll^agasinc. 
No. 65. 
MAY, 1895. 
VoL. VI. 
THE SUMMER HOMES OF THE SEA-BIRDS. 
S we pass along the Western Coast of Norway, we find 
few spots more interesting than those cliffs that are 
emphatically called Bird-rocks. From Stavanger, 
right away northward, round the North Cape to the 
frontier of Russia, these cliffs rise up, gaunt, lofty, and mostly 
bare of grass or foliage ; and as we usually see them, from early 
spring round to late autumn, they are tenanted by multitudes of 
sea-birds, which, at times, young and old, seem to surpass in 
number the very sands upon the sea-shore. As we pass in and 
out of the picturesque fjords that branch oflF, like the fingers from 
the palm of the hand, into smaller fjords and still smaller ones, 
and ramify far into the land, pouring down from many points 
throughout their course lovely fosses or waterfalls, we still meet 
with these Bird-rocks, here and there, in going through some 
narrow channel or winding round some projecting headland. 
We steam in and out of the pleasant Hardanger F'jord, 
through the many ramifications of grander and gloomier Sogne, 
the Nords Fjord, and the Hjorund, past delightful Molde and 
the Lofoten Islands, round the North Cape to the Porsanger 
and the Varanger Fjords; and in all these fjords, or in the 
precipitous cliffs that frown above the fearfully narrow passages 
that lead to them, or from one to another, we are never without 
reminiscences of Bird-rocks that we have seen, or that we may 
look forward soon to see. 
These are the summer houses of many of our migrant birds ; 
here they have for ages bred without let or hindrance ; and here- 
from they flock, as the long winter of Norway draws on, to pass 
the bleak season in regions that extend from our own shores 
far southward to the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea, or even 
beyond the Equator to the far distant realms of Africa. 
