p. It looked me in the eyes out
of its immortal hilarity and peace, took me by the hand, and said,
"Forever!" And in that "Forever" spoke to me an infinite remembrance and
an infinite hope.

At eleven A. M. we drew near to Gannet Rocks. These are three in number,
all high, one quite small and conical, a second somewhat larger, the
third, which is the home of gannets, several acres in extent. They were
all ruddy, being of red sandstone; and the smallest, in that warm light,
was actual carmine. The largest rises with precipitous sides, which in
parts beetle far over the sea, to a height of four hundred feet, having
above a surface nearly level, but sloping gently to the south. By zigzag
scrambling one may at a particular point climb to this surface; but it
is a hard climb, and a landing can be effected only in extreme calm.

At the distance of two miles or more, on our approach, the surface was
visible, owing to its slight southward slope. It had precisely the
appearance of being deeply covered with snow, save in one part, about a
fourth of its area, where it was bright green. We knew that this snow
was no other than the female gannets, crowded together in the act of
sitting on their eggs; but by no inspection with powerful glasses could
we discern a single point where the rock appeared between them. They
were literally _packed_ together, every inch of room being used. Six or
eight acres of them!

But where are the males? There is no apparent room for them on the rock.
Just as this question occurred to me, some one cried out, "Look in the
air! look in the air above the rock!" I lifted my glass, and there they
were, a veritable _cloud_. They reminded me, saving the color, of a
cloud of midges which astonished me one summer evening when I was a
boy,--so thick that you could not see through them. Whether these ever
alight I cannot say. One thing is certain: they cannot all, nor any
considerable portion of them, alight on this rock together,--unless,
indeed, one should roost on another's back.

But the gannet is not particular about alighting. It is just as cheap
flying, he thinks. His true home, like that of the frigate-bird and one
or two others, is the air. This is indicated in his structure. The skin
is not, as in most animals, strictly connected with the flesh, but is
attached by separate elastic fibres; and, like the frigate-bird, it can
force in under the skin, and into various cellular passages in the body,
air wh