hundreds, you see, large and small, grey-backed and black-backed; and over them all two or three great gannets swooping round and round.

Oh! one has fallen into the sea!

Yes, with a splash just like a cannon-ball.

And

here he comes up again, with a fish in his beak. If he had fallen on your head, with that beak of his, he would have split it open. I have heard of men catching gannets by tying a fish on a board, and letting it float; and when the gannet strikes at it, he drives his bill into the board, and cannot get it out.

But is not that cruel?

I think so. Gannets are of no use, for eating, or anything else.

What a noise! It is quite deafening. And what are those black birds about, who croak like crows, or parrots ?

Look at them. Some have broad bills, with a white stripe on it, and cry something like the moorhens at home. Those are razor-bills.

And what are those who say "marrock," something like a parrot ?

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The ones with thin bills? They are guillemots, murres as we call them in Devon: but in some places they call them "marrocks," from what they say.

And each has a little baby bird swimming behind

it. Oh! there: the mother has cocked up her tail and dived, and the little one is swimming about looking for her! How it cries! It is afraid of the yacht.

And there she comes up again, and cries" marrock" to call it.

Look at it swimming up to her, and cuddling to her, quite happy.

Quite happy. And do you not think that anyone who took a gun and shot either that mother or that child would be both cowardly and cruel?

But they might eat them.

They taste

These sea-birds are not good to eat. too strong of fish-oil. They are of no use at all, except that the gulls' and terns' feathers are put into girls' hats.

Well, they might find plenty of other things to put in their hats.

So I think. Yes: it would be very cruel, very cruel indeed, to do what some do, shoot at these poor things, and leave them floating about wounded till they die. But I suppose, if one gave them one's mind about such doings, and threatened to put the new Sea Fowl Act in force against them, and fine them, and show them up in the newspapers, they would say they meant no harm, and had never thought about its being cruel.

Then they ought to think.

They ought; and so ought you. Half the cruelty in the world, like half the misery, comes simply from people's not thinking; and boys are often very cruel from mere thoughtlessness. So when

you are tempted to rob birds' nests, or to set the dogs on a moorhen, or pelt wrens in the hedge, think; and say-How should I like that to be done to me?

It is alive

I know but what are all the birds doing? Look at the water, how it sparkies. with tiny fish, "fry," "brett" as we call them in the West, which the mackerel are driving up to the top.

Poor little things! How hard on them! the big fish at them from below, and the birds at them from above. And what is that? Thousands of fish leaping out of the water, scrambling over each other's backs! What a curious soft rushing roaring noise they make!

Aha! The eaters are going to be eaten in turn. Those are the mackerel themselves; and I suspect they see Mr. Whale, and are scrambling out of the way as fast as they can, lest he should swallow them down, a dozen at a time. Look out sharp for

him now.

I hope he will not come very near.

No. The fish are going from us and past us. It he comes up, he will come up astern of us, so look back. There he is!

That? I thought it was a boat.

He does look very like a boat upside down. But that is only his head and shoulders.

next.

"Hoch!"

He will blow

Oh! What a jet of spray, like the Geysers! the sun made a rainbow on the top of it. quite still now.

And

He is

You

Yes; he is taking a long breath or two. need not hold my hand so tight. His head is from us; and when he goes down, he will go right away. Oh, he is turning head over heels! There is his back fin again. And Ah! was not that a slap!

How the water boiled and

he had!

water!

foamed; and what a tail

And how the mackerel flew out of the

Yes. You are a lucky boy to have seen that. I have not seen one of those gentlemen show his "flukes," as they call them, since I was a boy on the Cornish coast.

Where is he gone?

But did you

Hunting mackerel, away out at sea. notice something odd about his tail, as you call itthough it is really none?

It looked as if it was set on flat, and not upright, like a fish's. But why is it not a tail?

Just because it is set on flat, not upright: and learned men will tell you that those two flukes are

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