For their breeding-places these Gulls invariably select rocks well furnished with ledges, projections, or cavities, ranged one above another, and it is on these shelves or within the hollows, that they place their nests. From the foot of the rock to its very summit, each "coign of vantage" is appropriated, each platform covered, and if not exactly cooing like so many Doves, at least they make as musical shriekings and screechings as a Sea Gull is capable of producing. During all this love-making, great numbers are continually flying hither and thither in search of materials with which to build, so that the whole hill is surrounded with them, and when seen at a distance they present very much the appearance of a swarm of bees. Previous to our visiting Lapland we had read descriptions of these breeding-places, but from them had formed a very imperfect conception of the reality. Never shall we forget the day on which we made an excursion to Svärrholt, not very far from the North Cape. The vast perpendicular front of the rock to which the Gulls resorted, looked as we approached it like a gigantic slate covered all over with millions of little white dots. On our firing a gun, all these millions of shining points seemed to detach themselves from the dark background, afterwards to become alive, next to become Sea Gulls, and then to pour themselves in a continuous stream into the sea. Looking upwards it seemed exactly as if a great snow-storm had begun to shower gigantic flakes from the skies--for minutes together it snowed birds, the whole sea, as far as we could discern, was thickly covered with them, and yet the surface of the rock seemed as densely peopled with birds as at first. We had before thought the narratives we had read were exaggerations, we now found them to be far below the truth. In every nest these birds lay three or four eggs of a dirty rusty yellow, sparsely besprinkled with dots and streaks of a darker tint. It is only reasonable to suppose that each pair devote themselves exclusively to the incubation of their own eggs and the rearing of their own young. But how a pair, among all those hundreds of thousands of nests can ever find their own abode, or even each other, when they have once left their place even for a minute is beyond our comprehension. The young birds remain in the nest till the middle of August, at which time they are sufficiently fledged to enable them to fly out to sea and add their voice to the deafening screeching of their fellows. * * * * *