376 
SWIMMERS. 
These birds abound in Norway and the Hebrides, partic- 
ularly on some of the least accessible of the islands. Accord- 
ing to Dr. Harvey, Bass Island, near Edinburgh, not more than 
a mile in circumference, has in the months of May and June its 
surface almost wholly covered with nests, eggs, and young birds, 
so that it is scarcely possible to walk without treading on them ; 
and the flocks of birds are so prodigious as, when in flight, to 
darken the air like clouds, and their noise is so stunning that it 
is scarcely possible to hear your next neighbor. Looking down 
towards the sea from the top of the precipice, you see it on all 
sides covered with multitudes of birds, swimming and chasing 
their prey ; and if in sailing round the island you survey the 
hanging cliffs, you may see on every crag or fissure of the 
rocks numberless birds of various sorts and sizes ; and seen 
in the distance, the crowding flocks passing continually to and 
from the island can only be compared to a vast swarm of bees. 
The rocks of St. Kilda are no less frequented by the Gan- 
nets, and Martin assures us that the inhabitants of that small 
island consume annually no less than twenty-two thousand 
young birds of this species, besides a vast quantity of their 
eggs, these being, in fact, their principal support. This supply, 
though spontaneous from nature, is not obtained without immi- 
nent hazard o'' jfe to those who engage in procuring these birds 
and their eggs ; as besides climbing difficult and almost inac- 
cessible paths among the rocks beetling over the sea, they 
sometimes lower each other down from above, by ropes in 
baskets, to collect their game from the shelvings and fissures 
of the rocks chosen by these sagacious birds. The young are 
a favorite dish with the North Britons in general, and during 
the season they are constantly brought from the Bass Isle to 
Edinburgh. 
As might be supposed, the Gannets are in these islands 
birds of passage, making their first appearance in the month 
of March, continuing there till August or September, accord- 
ing as the inhabitants take or leave their first egg ; but in 
general, the time of breeding and departing appears to coincide 
with the arrival of the herring and its migration out of those 
