No one, however indifferent he may be to the ordinary sights and sounds of Nature, can maintain even the affectation of unconcern when visiting for the first time the [Illustration: "THE SEA-BIRDS' CITADEL"] ledged and terraced rocks upon which the brave guillemots congregate. As the boat approaches the sea-girt nesting-home of these delightful birds, the cliff, looked at through glasses, seems garrisoned by a multitude of little soldiers in black and white. They are standing to attention, shoulder to shoulder, along every ledge, in level lines where continuous foothold permits it, in little knots on every broader plateau, while the summit is thronged. As the boat gets nearer you see that, besides the white-breasted birds standing upright, there are just as many showing their black backs sitting on the ground, or rather propped up on their tails. The latter are sitting-birds, for the eggs are so large as compared with the mothers that they cannot be sate upon in the ordinary brooding manner of other fowls. So the guillemot, when she wishes to sit, walks up to her egg and then with her beak pushes it between her legs, and so straddling as it were over it, she remains always at an angle, her body resting against the egg, instead of nestling down upon it. Long before the invaders' boat comes into the shadow of the cliff, the birds take alarm at the visitation, and at first by dozens, then by hundreds, and finally by their thousands, spring upwards or dive downwards from their places, and fill the air with an indescribable murmur and flurry of wings-- "Far adown, like snow Shook from the bosom of a wintry cloud, And drifting on the wind in feathery flakes." But the brave guillemots do not scream or cry out. Some of them grunt their dissatisfaction at disturbance, and but for this they betray no symptoms of annoyance or anger. Nor do they circle round their threatened home, but rising from their places in a fast-thickening cloud, they scatter for a minute or two through the air, and then settle upon the sea and wait. "There on the waters floating like a fleet Of tiny vessels, argosies complete Such as brave Gulliver deep-wading, drew 'Victorious from the ports of Blefuscu.'"