BREEDING COLONIES. 
353 
Cormorants. Thus no single spot remains untenanted. 
The mere fall of a stone over the precipice scares 
thousands upon thousands of birds, which take wing with 
screams so powerful as to drown the roaring of the surf 
below. The confusion of voices which strikes the ear is 
indescribable ; and one might easily imagine the rocky 
headland to be haunted with evil spirits, as described in 
the words of Mephistopheles :—- 
£< Dost hear the magic voices from above, 
Close around us, and in the distance too? 
They whirl along the rugged mountain’s crest 
A weird chorus of spirit-harmony ! ” 
This noise increases—the rushing, roaring confusion 
of forms and sounds—the nearer one approaches the 
centre of the colony. All the senses become, at last, 
tired and stupified; the ever-moving mass passes and 
repasses before the eye, and the continuous whirring of 
thousands of rushing wings seems so great as to render 
one alike powerless to distinguish either sound or colour; 
the stench alone remains but too clearly impressed upon 
the nasal organs. 
I shall never forget the headland of Svartholt, not 
far from the North Cape. I had already heard in the 
south of Norway that the Kittiwake (Rissa tridactyla) 
bred there, and was told that to form any idea of their 
immense numbers it was necessary to scare them with 
a cannon shot. My good friend, the captain of the mail 
steamer, on board which I was travelling, kindly acceding 
to my request, passed over to the place and fired the 
magic shot whose thunder was to arouse the breeding 
swarm. While we were yet a mile and a half off the 
headland we saw flocks of from five to eight hundred of 
these Gulls either floating on the water or flying in long 
3 B 
