"Bless the Lord, all his works, in all places of his dominion: bless the Lord, O my soul."—Psalm ciii.
Fig. 84.—GIRAFFE FEEDING.
1326. The distribution of animals, or Zoological Geography, is of great interest, and should be carefully studied in connection with Botanical Geography (see [1208]). The highest department of the animal kingdom (writes the Rev. W. Milner) commences with the class of Birds, which may be naturally divided into the three great orders of ærial, terrestrial, and aquatic. Aggregation into immense flocks is a distinguishing feature of several species, especially of the aquatic order, which form separate colonies, building their nests in the same state, though other spots equally adapted are at no great distance. Hence the Vogel-bergs, or bird rocks of the northern seas, one of which at Westmannsharn in the Faroe group of islands, seldom intruded upon by man, presents a most extraordinary spectacle to the visitor. The Vogel-berg lies in a frightful chasm in the precipitous shores of the island, which rise to the height of a thousand feet, only accessible from the sea by a narrow passage. Here congregate a host of birds. Thousands of guillemots and auks swim in groups around the boat which conveys man to their domain, look curiously at him, and vanish beneath the water to rise in his immediate neighbourhood. The black guillemot comes close to the very oars. The seal stretches his head above the waves, not comprehending what has disturbed the repose of his asylum, while the rapacious skua pursues the puffin and gull. High in the air the birds seem like bees clustering about the rocks, whilst lower they fly past so close that they might be knocked down with a stick. But not less strange is the domicile of this colony. On some low rocks scarcely projecting above the water sit the glossy cormorants, turning their long necks on every side. Next are the skua gulls, regarded with an anxious eye by the kittiwakes above. Nest follows nest in crowded rows along the whole breadth of the rock, and nothing is visible but the heads of the mothers and the white rocks between. A little higher on the narrow shelves sit the guillemots and auks, arranged as on parade, with their white breasts to the sea, and so close that a hailstone could not pass between them. The puffins take the highest station, and, though scarcely visible, betray themselves by their flying backwards and forwards. The noise of such a multitude of birds is confounding, and in vain a person asks a question of his nearest neighbour. The harsh tones of the kittiwakes are heard above the whole, the intervals being filled with the monotonous note of the auk, and the softer voice of the guillemot. When Graba, from whose travels this description is principally drawn, visited the Vogel-berg, he was tempted by the sight of a crested cormorant to fire a gun, but what became of it, he remarks, it was impossible to ascertain. The air was darkened by the birds roused from their repose. Thousands hastened out of the chasm with a frightful noise, and spread themselves over the ocean. The puffins came wandering from their holes, and regarded the universal confusion with comic gestures. The kittiwakes remained composedly in their nests, whilst the cormorants tumbled headlong into the sea. Similar great congregations of the feathered race appear where the shores are rocky high, and precipitous, but this is strikingly the case, where
——"The northern ocean, in vast whirls,
Boils round the naked melancholy isles
Of farthest Thule; and the Atlantic surge
Pours in among the stormy Hebrides.