impossible that these little wings should be adequate to take it down in a slanting line to the sea, and the longer it stays on the ledge the less impossible does this become. This gives a reason for its staying so long; but why should the mother not take it, if she does do so, almost from the very first?
It seems funny to be looking over a ledge, all day long, and to eat one's lunch whilst so doing. But I just look up to make my notes, and on looking down again, almost right under me, I see a seal hanging lazily in this quiet shore-pool of the sea; for to-day there is hardly a foam-line round the stacks and rocks. When he sinks I can follow him for some time under the water. His hind fins or feet seem to become quiescent, as though only the front ones were used; but this last I cannot see. As he recedes, going both downwards and outwards, he becomes greener and greener, and the green darker and fainter, till, at last, having first looked dimly luminous, he disappears. Some guillemots are on the water, too—thirty-two in all, that I can see—but not one of these has a young one swimming by it. Farther off, a kittiwake, I think, is feeding on the floating carcase of one of its own species—a young one. Horrid sight! The prettiness of the bird contrasts so with what it is doing. But what a joy should this be to the optimist, who always seems to extract a comfort from the most uncomfortable things, as though they not only justified his position, but made it self-evident.
Another half-hour has gone, and still the eyed or
