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BIRD-NESTING.

ON the rocky and precipitous coasts of the north of Europe, as well as on many a craggy islet in the Atlantic, innumerable sea-fowl lay their eggs and breed their young. In the Orkneys, the Hebrides, and along the ledges of the steep rocks of the Isle of Wight, they abound in great numbers, and form a considerable part of the revenue of the poorer population. eider-duck and razor-bill auk, are chiefly valued for their down; others, as the gull, for their eggs; while some are esteemed good for food, as the gannet. Numerous islands in the Southern Atlantic, at which ships have now and then touched, have been found to be inhabited by myriads

Some of these sea-fowl, as the

of sea-birds, so unaccustomed to the sight of man, that the sailors could walk into the midst of them and knock them down with a stick, without their attempting to fly or escape. But as their visits become more frequent, the birds grow much shyer, and it is with more difficulty they are approached. On our own shores they are not so regardless about the visit of a man to their nests; and yet they are plentiful in the extreme, and the bold cragsmen of the coast find little difficulty in getting at them. Of, the gannet it is said that twenty-two thousand birds and an immense number of eggs are annually disposed of in St. Kilda alone.

Most of these birds build no nest, but lay their eggs on the bare ground, in any shelving spot that will contain them. At a certain period of the year, the surface of the Bass Rock, at the entrance of the Frith of Forth, in Scotland, is so covered with the young and eggs of the gannet, that a person can scarcely walk without treading on them. This rock and other portions of the coast are let at a very good

rental, for the sake of the profits arising from these birds. Their nests are found not only on the open surface of a jutting rock, but also on all the projections and crevices its precipitous sides may exhibit. The people, who make a traffic of them, pride themselves on the boldness and daring by which they come at these seemingly inaccessible nests. Some of them they reach by a careful descent down part of the rock, clinging with their hands and feet to its projections, where a false step, or the slip of a single grasp, would send the adventurous bird-nester headlong into the foaming surge below. Still more dangerous positions are reached in the manner exhibited in our engraving. A stake or iron bar is driven firmly into the ground, round this is coiled a rope, having a stick tied firmly across it at one end; taking in his hand a short crooked stick, and with a basket by his side, the egg-seeker then strides the cross-bar at the end of the rope, and, grasping it firmly, is gradually lowered by his friends as he gives the signal. It may easily be imagined, that to perform this requires no ordinary courage; very

different is it from the bird-nesting exploits of some of our young friends, whose greatest risk is a scratch or two from some troublesome thorn, as in the hedge-row they scramble for the nest of a poor harmless bird. Astride this stick the man is gently let down, the boiling ocean hundreds of feet below, and the screaming of the sea-fowl, as they are startled from their nests, are enough to frighten the most courageous person who is unaccustomed to the work. If the least breeze should arise, the man swings to and fro as a cobweb waves in the air. The chafing of the rope on the edges of the rock sometimes causes it to snap, and then the poor bird-nester is tumbled into the abyss beneath. If his object is to secure eggs only, (which our picture represents,) he shouts to frighten away the birds, which fly up in countless numbers, making a deafening noise with their cries. He then hooks their eggs with his crooked stick into the basket he carries, and every now and then gives the signal for it to be raised by means of a rope which is attached to it. If the spot be favourable, very many eggs are soon col

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