“Having promised to visit some friends in Gardenstown to partake of their hospitality during the festive season of the New Year, I left home with that object on the morning of the 31st of December 1850. I passed through Macduff, and took the path which leads along the cliffs, hoping thereby to meet with something rare or strange in the ornithological world, and worthy of my shot. In this way I had nearly reached the highest point of Gamrie Head without meeting with anything but the common tenants of these rocky braes, when my attention was attracted by the screaming of a number of birds at the bottom of the cliff. On looking over I observed that they consisted of several hooded and carrion crows, together with two ravens, two Iceland gulls (_Laurus Islandicus_), and a number of other dark-coloured gulls, apparently immature specimens of the great black-backed species, one of which, in perfect plumage, was standing and picking at an object floating in the water close to the rock, and about which all the other birds were screaming. It appeared to me, and it afterwards proved to be the case, that they were making food of the object about which they were fighting; but the black-backed bird kept them all at bay, allowing none to approach, not even the ravens themselves.
“Having feasted my eyes for a while on the Icelanders, the thought struck me that I would descend the cliff in order to procure one of them if possible, and also to get a nearer view of the object which had drawn the various birds together. Accordingly, observing a narrow track near me, I commenced my descent, but I had only proceeded a short distance when I found myself on the brink of a precipice. I was about to return, when, accidentally looking over, I observed a portion of the rock jutting out a little beyond the one on which I stood, and about four feet and a half below it. I now concluded that, if I could gain this rock, I would still find the path to enable me to continue downwards. With these hopes, and having laid down my gun, I swung myself down upon the rock. I had no sooner done so, than I heard a low growl, as if proceeding from a rabid dog; and on looking along the rock, I was a good deal surprised at seeing two foxes standing in a rather slouching attitude at the other end of the shelf, apparently very much discomfited at my unwarrantable intrusion.