KAZOR-JilLLEU AUK. 
4II 
into the most dreary hyperboreal climates throughout the 
whole of the northern hemisphere. They abound in the north 
of Europe as far as Iceland and Greenland, and in America 
swarm on the bleak and barren coasts of Labrador. Small 
groups of from ten to twelve proceed along the coasts of the 
United States as far as New \ork, in severe winters remaining 
in deep water ; but they are by no means common, and scarcely 
ever seen in Massachusetts Bay. 
lake most of the birds of this family, they have a steady pre- 
dilection for their ancient eyry. From time immemorial they 
resort to the same rocks and coasts, and there are but few places 
sufficiently desert, rocky, and inaccessible suited to their furtive 
habits and marine food. One of their great resorts in England 
is on and about the Needle-rocks and other precipitous cliffs, so 
dangerous to the shipwrecked mariner, which flank the romantic 
Isle of Wight. As curious and striking works of Nature and 
instinct, these, and the birds which frecpient them, afford an 
interesting spectacle in May and June. The Razor-bills are 
here in such numbers that a boatful might be killed in a day ; 
and the eggs being esteemed a delicacy, particularly for salads, 
the fishermen and other indigent and adventurous inhabitants 
traverse the precipices in search of the pickle samphire and 
the eggs of the Murre. Some of these stupendous cliffs are 
six hundred feet above the yawning deep, which lashes and 
frets them into gloomy caverns. Seaward they pre.sent rugged 
and deeply Indented cliffs, on whose rude shelvings and ledges 
the birds arrange themselves by thousands, and without further 
preparation lay their eggs, which lie as it were strewed without 
precaution by hundreds in a row, in no way .attached to or de- 
fended by the rocks, so that in a gale of wind whole ranks of 
them are swept into the sea. To these otherwise inaccessible 
deposits the dauntless fowlers ascend, and passing intrepidly 
from rock to rock, collect the eggs and descend with the same 
indifference. In most places, however, the .attempt is made 
from above. I'he adventurer is let down from the slope con- 
tiguous to the brink of the cliff by a rope sustained by a single 
assistant, who, lowering his companion, depends on his per- 
