The day whereof I speak broke bright and cool. 

 Shadows shortened; and then the oblique glare of 

 the rising October sun dissolved the mists still 

 hovering in the cove. 



On the wings of the early morning there had 

 already arrived, from one of the rookeries of a 

 Long Island forest, phalanx after phalanx of 

 beach-combing crows : the first appearance of these 

 local visitors who, now since they will no longer 

 find their food in the woods and fields, continue 

 daily until spring to haunt this friendly shore. 



Disputing vociferously this invasion of what 

 doubtless they held to be their rightful territory, 

 were scores of gulls. Of course, in this sort of argu- 

 ment the crow easily outmatches the gull: it can 

 talk louder and faster. Moreover, it is more cun- 

 ning. 



An instance of this presently occurred while I 

 was idly observing the milling crowd through bin- 

 oculars from the door of my laboratory. Occasion- 

 ally a gull would rise into the air with a mussel 

 or clam in its beak and, in accordance with its cus- 

 tomary habit, would drop the mollusk from a 

 height sufficient to fracture its shell on the gravel 



[4] 



