58 
INTRODUCTION. 
these are more than proportionally numerous in 
a Fauna so limited ; and while thousands in sum- 
mer seek our precipitous coasts and headlands 
as breeding stations, others scarcely less numerous 
flock in winter from their more northern incubations, 
and fill our bays and marine inlets. 
The contrast of these localities at the different 
seasons is most striking ; rocks standing far in the 
ocean’s void, and precipices of the most dizzy height 
to which all approach by land is cut oft!, possess a 
dreary solitude for seven or eight months of the year ; 
a few cormorants seeking repose during the night, or 
some gulls claiming a temporary shelter or resting- 
place from the violence of the storm, are almost 
the only and then but occasional tenants. In tho 
throng of the season of breeding, a very different 
picture is seen : the whole rocks and sea and air 
are one scene of animation, and the various groups 
have returned to take up their old stations, and are 
now employed in all the accessaries of incubation, 
affording lessons to the ornithological student he 
will in vain look for elsewhere; the very rocks are 
lighted up, and would seem to take a brightness 
from the hurry around, while the cries of the inha- 
bitants alone discordant, harmonise with tho scene. 
During the same season, upon the low sandy or 
muddy coasts, or extensive merses, where the tide 
recedes for miles, and the only interruption on the 
outline is the slight undulations of some mussel- 
scalps, the dark colour of some bed of zostera con- 
trasting against the long bright crest of the surf, or 
