LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN GUULS AND TERNS. 5 



At the same instant it seemed as though a big brown projectile hurtled past 

 exactly beneath him, and a fraction of a second later, as though another one 

 had hit him. There was a burst of feathers and a whirl. The eagle appeared 

 suddenly to grow much larger, miraculously to sprout an extra and smaller, 

 thinner pair of wings, and to reel in his flight, recover, reel again, turn half 

 over, as if grappling some invisible foe, drop like a thunderbolt some 200 

 feet, and then break into two pieces, the larger piece slanting upward on the 

 one hand and the smaller executing the same wonderful aerial evolution on the 

 other. 



Then were the facts made plain. The smallei' portion was the skua. He had 

 darted like lightning upon the eagle's back and clung there for a second or two — 

 only for a second or two, but it seen»ed minutes while the two fell — after the 

 king had avoided his mate's first reckless, headlong, crazy rush. 



I have no hope to describe to you what followed, because the laboring human 

 eye was far too slow to see and the brain to grasp the electric-quick passage of 

 events. I only know that one was dimly aware that some stupendous battle 

 was going on up there in the dim northern heavens ; that bodies, large bodies, 

 bursting with life and a dozen uncurbed wild passions, were sweeping and 

 swerving, and swooping, and swaying, and streaking, and stabbing, and slash- 

 ing, and striving, and screaming in one wild welter of wildering speed. And all 

 the while the land below, save for the liuddled sheep, lay as deserted as if a 

 hand had come down and swept it clean of life. Yet one knew that in reality 

 hundreds and hundreds of sharp eyes were watching from cover that battle of 

 the overlords of the air and calculating the chances of life upon its issue. 



Slowly, second by furious second, inch by hard-fought inch it looked from the 

 earth, but mile by mile it was really, up there in the unbounded airy spaces, 

 the battle receded, receded upward and northward, till the straining eye was 

 at last only conscious of a faraway blur, a dancing of specks, as it were gnats, 

 on the vision, and then, with an almost audible sigh from the hidden specta- 

 tors, of nothing. 



Mr. Rich's impressions of the behavior of the skua are expressed 

 in his notes as follows : 



This is the overlord of the fishing grounds, fearing no bird here. "Whether 

 the skua would successfully contest with the black-backed gull the writer is 

 unable to state, as the two did not come together under his observation, but 

 he thinks that the skua need have little uneasiness as to the outcome of bat- 

 tle. The difference in size between the black back and the skua is mostly a 

 matter of measurements, due in part, at least, to the skua's shortness of 

 rudder. In bulk and weight there is less difference, probably, than is shoAvn 

 by these figures, and in physical powers, judging from appearances, there is 

 little to choose between them. Of the two, the skua's armament seems the 

 better fitted for damaging an enemy, and he seems to possess greater speed and 

 skill in maneuvering — a flight of greater power and control than has his 

 rival, who, gull-like, is a drifter rather than a flier. Certain it is that the 

 hag, tern, kittiwake, and herring gull move respectfully aside when the " sea 

 hen " comes sailing above them, for all these he harries and robs constantly, 

 performing in the realms of the sea the same robber tactics which the raptorial 

 birds carry on among the feathered people ashore. Are the hags or the gulls 

 squabbling over a bit of waste or striving to tear a " poke-blown " fish which 

 has drifted away from the steamer's side ; over the struggling mass there comes 

 the shadow of broad wings ; a heavy body drops among them regardless of 

 what may be beneath it ; the weaker move respectfully aside and leave the 



