One morning his mate flew away on a fishing 
trip and never came back again. Things like 
this occur every now and then in the bird 
world, and when they do the mate that is left 
tries to care for the young and bring them up 
alone. So it was a perfectly natural and 
quite the usual thing under the circumstances, 
for Hardheart to do his best with the helpless 
little bird-babies. But for some reason he did 
not succeed. Whether he gave them the wrong 
food or a cold wind came up when he was away, 
or a raven found the nest, I do not know. 
Now with the loss of the young ones this big 
herring gull’s nature seemed to change. He be- 
came cross and cruel and developed into as dan- 
gerous a character as one might ever expect to 
find in a bird-town. He always wanted the best 
of everything to eat and he would fight the 
other gulls, pecking at their eyes and stealing 
their food until, in fact, it came to be very hard 
to live with him. 
Over at Matinicus there were big sheds on 
some of the wharves where the codfish were 
cleaned before they were spread out in the sun 
8 
