XIX 



KITES OF THE SEA 



" Graceful seagulls, plumed in snowy white, 

 Follow'd the creaming furrow of the prow, 

 With easy pinion, pleasurably slow ; 

 Then on the waters floated like a fleet 

 Of tiny vessels, argosies complete, 

 Such as brave Gulliver, deep wading, drew 

 Victorious from the forts of Blefuscu." 



OF all the methods of obtaining food to which 

 birds resort, none makes greater demands 

 on their physical powers than that which 

 we human beings term scavenging — the 

 seeking-out and devoming of the multifarious edible 

 objects left, unclaimed by the owners, on the face of the 

 land or the sea. No bird can eke out an existence by 

 scavenging unless it be endowed with wonderful power 

 of flight, the keenest eyesight, and limitless energy, 

 to say nothing of the abihty and the will to fight when 

 necessity arises. Thus it happens that it is to the 

 despised scavengers that we must direct our eyes 

 if we would behold the perfection of flight. The 

 vultures, the kites, and the gulls are verily the monarchs 

 of the atmosphere. 



Bird scavengers are of two kinds — specialists and 

 general practitioners. The former confine themselves 



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