KITES OF THE SEA 107 



rather than. the rule among gulls. They are sea-birds 

 merely in the sense that they usually pick their food 

 off water. They are found only where there is refuse 

 to be picked up. In those parts of the ocean that are 

 not frequented by ships gulls are conspicuous by their 

 absence. They do not, as a rule, travel very far from 

 land ; when they do venture out to sea, it is invariably 

 in the wake of some great ship. Every ocean liner 

 sheds edible objects all along its course, and so attracts 

 numbers of gulls. These follow the ship for perhaps 

 two hundred miles, and then forsake it to return with 

 some homeward-bound vessel. 



The seashore and the estuaries of tidal rivers are 

 the favourite hunting-grounds of the sea-gulls, the 

 flotsam of the rivers and the jetsam of the waves being 

 the attractions. Numbers of the graceful birds await 

 the return of the fishing smacks, in order to secure 

 the fish thrown away by the fishermen. The marine 

 kites are not always content to wait for rejected fish ; 

 not infrequently they boldly help themselves to some 

 of the shining contents of the nets, and sometimes 

 actually tear the meshes with their strong sharp bills. 

 In India there is always much fighting between the 

 gulls and the crows over the fish cast away by the 

 fishers. The antagonists are well matched. Similar 

 contests have been recorded in the British Isles. I 

 cull from The Evening Telegraph the following descrip- 

 tion of a fight between gulls and rooks over ground 

 covered with worms which had been killed by a salt- 

 water flood : " Thousands of gulls and rooks fought 

 each other with a determination and venom that could 



