WINTER SHIFTS. 273 



common gulls, herring gulls, and an occasional 

 lesser black back in immature mottled grey and 

 brown plumage, were driven higher and higher 

 up the River Thames by the insatiable pangs of 

 hunger. At last they arrived above bridge, and 

 met with hospitality as surprising as it was wel- 

 come. In spite of the intense cold, crowds of 

 people of all ages and classes stood on the Em- 

 bankment and threw crusts of bread, biscuits, 

 bits of cheese, and scraps of fish to the birds as 

 they wheeled and screamed, rose and fell, restless 

 as the ever-changeful sea from which they had 

 come. 



I had studied every one of them at home by 

 lonely tarn-side, on frowning ocean crag, or the 

 pebbly shore of some far northern isle, and must 

 confess that they looked sorrowfully out of 

 place in the very heart of grimy London town. 

 To see these beautiful grey and white birds of 

 wind and wave floating down the river on dirty 

 rafts of ice, or seated in sullen rows along the 

 gunwales of deserted coal barges, was to me the 

 most distressing sign of marine beggary. Whilst 

 watching the birds one day I was greatly de- 

 lighted to catch sight of a diminutive ink-stained 

 printer's boy feeding the boldest of them on 

 crusts of bread which he was scarce tall enough 

 to see alight on the bosom of the river after he 

 had cast them over the parapet. Taking the 



