In the old cruel days when falconry was for a time so "fashionable," the heron--or rather the heronsewe, hornsea, hornsey or hernshaw, for these are the older names of the bird we call heron and hern--was the fowl chiefly flown at with the largest and fiercest falcons, and the penalties for killing the bird, except with hawks or the long-bow, were very severe. But modern falconers, whose sport is now as humane as sport can ever be, have to be content with water-fowl for their prime flights. For the heron is annually becoming rarer as a wild bird, and before long will probably only be seen in the vicinity of private heronries, where the courtesies of country neighbourhood protect it from wilful molestation, and suffice to preserve for all lovers of Nature the charming sight of these birds, by some hill-bound tarn, "sole-sitting on the shores of old romance," seated aloft on "the pines, the heron's ancient home," or, like the spirit of tranquil solitude, beautifying the pleasant reaches of a river. CHAPTER VI THE SEA-EAGLE--GUILLEMOTS--EGG-GATHERING--THE PARADISE OF THE PUFFINS--THE STORMY-PETREL--THE SEA-EAGLE'S VICTIMS--THE BLACK-BACKED GULL--THE SKUA--AMONG THE CORMORANTS AND GULLS CHAPTER VI. "_The Eagle of the sea from Atlas soars_ _Or Teneriffe's hoar peak--_ _The watchful helmsman from the stern descries_ _And hails her course--_ _She mounts Alp-high and with her lower'd head_ _Suspended eyes the bulging sails, disdains_ _Their tardy course, outflies the hurrying rack,_ _And disappearing mingles with the clouds._" GRAHAME. The following lines of Spenser's, though multitudes have been written upon the eagle, have never been improved upon: "An eagle in his kingly pride, Soaring through his wide empire of the air To weather his broad sails." "Sailing with supreme dominion, through the azure deep of air"--"Eagles, golden-feathered, who do tower above us in their beauty, and must reign, in right thereof,"--but it is no use to go on quoting, for the poets' tributes to their flight alone would fill many pages. To feel the full force of them, to understand how little exaggeration there is in them, one must have seen an eagle, unconscious of observation, at its ease in the air.