“The fierce sea-eagle
In port terrific, from his lonely eyrie
(Itself a burden for the tallest tree)
Looks down o’er land and sea as his dominion,
Or from long chase ascending with his prey
Feeds his eaglets in the noonday sun.”
Oddly enough, “the fierce sea-eagle” and the poor puffin find another connecting link, less strained than that of being the eater and the eaten, in the rabbit. The erne will often take up its quarters for a time near a warren, and the sea-parrots do the same; but their reasons are very different, for while the former goes among the coneys for its meals, the latter does so to borrow the use of their burrows. And they live together on apparent terms of amity, much as the burrowing-owl and the prairie-dog live together on the Texan wastes.
“Amidst the flashing and feathery foam
The stormy-petrel finds a home,
A home if such a place may be
For her who lives on the wide, wide sea,
On the craggy ice, in the frozen air,
And only seeketh her rocky lair
To warm her young and teach them spring
At once o’er the wave on their stormy wing.”
Barry Cornwall.