THE NORTH SEA. 
329 
just named. On August 21st a Great Skua ( Stereo - 
rarius catarrhcictes), two hundred miles from Shetland, 
and twice during thaf month Shearwaters appear in my 
notes. Of course, for most of these species the open 
sea forms their natural home, and upon its surface 
they, together with the ducks, geese, and other water- 
fowl, to whose movements I shall presently refer, can 
rest when tired—not that I believe any strong-winged 
wildfowl are at all likely to become tired during a 
four-hundred-mile flight. The seasonal distribution of 
the sea-birds, however, is chiefly interesting to the 
naturalist, and evokes none of that surprise which the 
sudden appearance of some tiny feathered mite, such 
as a gold-crest or willow-wren, begets on board ship 
when hundreds of miles from land. That these little 
creatures, and others punier still, do regularly cross 
wide seas is, of course, a matter of common knowledge ; 
yet that fact in no way diminishes one’s sense of 
wonderment on seeing them in the very act of perform¬ 
ing the feat, and the more so when it chances to occur 
in the midst of a storm at sea. 
Almost every voyage during spring and autumn 
one sees small land-birds on their passage, and not 
birds only, but even those feebler folk, the insects, 
likewise essay to cross the North Sea, as the following 
records demonstrate. 
May 6th .—Blowing hard from north. Puffins and 
Guillemots observed sixty miles out; next day, wind 
increased with a ten-foot sea, which swept the decks 
and broke a seaman’s leg. In afternoon a Redstart 
followed the ship, and tried to alight on the log-line 
astern, evidently exhausted, and eventually fell behind. 
