SEA-CLIFFS IN NESTING TIME 141 



laid by two different species are practically of the same size, 

 as is the case with the herring and lesser black-backed gulls, 

 the only way to identify them certainly is to see the sitting 

 bird rise straight from them. This usually demands much 

 careful stalking, in the course of which many beautiful little 

 scenes of wild life are often 

 witnessed. Male herring gulls 

 watch proudly and peaceably 

 by the side of the sitting hen 

 on a lonely ledge, girt with 



shadowed 



in yellow 



a stone's 



pink sea-thrift and 

 with wild cabbage 

 bloom ; and only 

 throw away from their airy ter- 

 race, but divided for wingless 

 creatures by a gulf paved by 

 the sea, a long hanging slope 

 is dappled with the pure grey 

 and white plumage of the 

 brooding and nesting birds. 

 Sometimes the whole colony 

 may be lapped in silence and 

 the sunshine ; but generally, 

 even when they are quite un- 

 disturbed by intruders or visible 

 alarms, some of the cock birds 

 will be stretching their throats 



and uttering their loud barking cries. Scattered here and 

 there, and generally on the outside of the settlement, the 

 dark slaty back of the lesser black-back contrasts with her 

 snow-white head as she sits. Beyond another chasm, where 

 a narrow green chine runs from the cliff-top down towards 

 the sea another black-back catches the eye, nestling in the 



~ Z?f 



SEA-THRIFT 



