ful are the changes of the bay. The southwest wind sweeps
rain over it in slanting drifts. The islands show dimly grey amid a
welter of grey water, breaking angrily in short, petulant seas, which
buffet boats confusedly and put the helmsmen's skill to a high test. Or
chilly, curling mists wrap islands and promontories from sight. Terns,
circling somewhere up above, cry to each other shrilly. Gulls flit
suddenly into sight and out of sight again, uttering sorrowful wails.
Now and again cormorants, low flying with a rushing noise, break the
oily surface of the water with every swift downward flapping of their
wings. Then the boatman needs something more than skill, must rely upon
an inborn instinct for locality if he is not to find himself embayed and
aground in some strange land-locked corner far from his home. Or, in
the splendid summer days the islands seem poised a foot or two above the
glistening water. The white terns hover and plunge, re-emerge amid the
joyful callings of their fellows, each with some tiny silver fish to
feed to the yellow chicks which gape to them from the short, coarse
grass among the rocks. Curlews call to each other from island to island,
and high answering calls come from the sea-saturated fields of the
mainland. Small broad billed guillemots and puffins float at ease upon
the water, swelling with obvious pride as they display the flocks of
little ones which swim with infantile solemnity around them. Gulls
cluster and splash noisily over shoals of fry. Then boats drift lazily
along; piled high perhaps with brown turf, store of winter fuel for some
home; or bearing stolid cattle from the cropped pasturage of one island
to the untouched grass of another; or, paddled, noisily, carry a crowd
of boys and girls home from school, mightily enriched no doubt with
knowledge only to be obtained when the water is calm enough for
children's sea-going in the summer days.

On such days all the drama of the flowing and ebbing tides may be
watched with ever increasing wonder and delight The sea is caught by the
islands and goes whirling down the channels. It is turned backwards by
some stray spit of land and set beating against some other current of
the same tide which has taken a different way and reached the same point
in strong opposite flow. The little glistening wavelets leap to meet
each other, like lovers reunited whose mouths are hungry for the
pressure of glad greetings. There are places where the wate