CHAPTER V IL 



Watching Gulls and Skuas 



The oyster-catcher brings us to the sea, so to sea- 

 birds I will consecrate the next few chapters. 



Gulls and skuas are best watched on some lonely, 

 island, where they breed, and thither we will now 

 transfer ourselves. 



They breed together, or, more strictly speaking, 

 conterminously, and more than half of the whole 

 island — all that part where it is a peaty waste 

 clothed with a thin brown heather — is now, in early 

 June, their assembly ground and prospective nursery. 

 The gulls are in much the greater numbers, and all 

 of them here are of the black-backed species, mostly 

 the lesser of the two so named, but with a fair sprink- 

 ling of the greater black-backed also. Lying down 

 and sweeping the distance with the glasses — for near 

 they have risen and float overhead in a clamorous 

 cloud — one sees everywhere the bright, white dottings 

 of their breasts, soft - gleaming amidst the uniform 



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