FOOD FOR SEA-BIRDS. 
427 
from fifty to eighty yards in depth, and of three hundred 
yards or more in breadth, not scattered, hut flying as com- 
pactly and as close as the free movement of their wings will 
allow, and passing for a full hour or more with a swiftness 
little inferior to that of a Pigeon. On these data, it has been 
calculated that the number in such a flight would amount 
to one hundred and fifty- one million, five hundred thousand 
birds ! about one fifth of the whole population of the globe. 
These birds live and breed in burrows, and the number of 
burrows required to 
lodge such a flock 
would not he far short 
of seventy- six millions ; 
and allowing a square 
yard for each burrow, 
the space covered would 
he something more 
than twenty-four and 
a half square miles, or 
nearly fifteen thousand 
six hundred and eighty 
acres of ground ! 
And though in such cheerless solitudes, man would soon 
perish for want of sustenance, living food seems to he placed 
there by Providence to a greater extent than in any other 
known parts of the habitable globe. Countless as are 
the myriads of these birds, still more countless, by millions 
and millions of figures, are the lesser marine beings on which 
they feed. Some idea may he formed of their abundance, by 
calculating the length of time that would he requisite for a 
certain number of persons to count the quantity contained in 
one square mile of sea-water. Allowing that one person 
could count a million in seven days, which is barely possible, 
it has been calculated that no less than eighty thousand 
persons should have started at the creation of the world, 
nearly six thousand years ago, to complete the calculation to 
the present time ! And if, passing beyond the consideration 
