100 BIRD WATCHING 



viction, for though I admired it, yet there seemed 

 always to be in it some want which I felt, but was 

 unable to define. It puzzled me, but at last I dis- 

 covered what it was, and my discovery, which acquits 

 the bird and is to the honour of nature, I will give 

 as I wrote it down directly after I had made it. 



" One of the great skuas has now flown right out 

 to sea. There its flight, which is peculiar, becomes 

 instantly very graceful. Descending with a sweep, 

 which, though majestic, is yet soft and gentle, it 

 seems about to sink upon the waves, when, almost as 

 it touches them, it glides again softly upwards, to 

 descend once more in the same manner. Thus, ever 

 rising and sinking, seeming always about to rest, yet 

 never resting, it glides, tireless, and seems to coquet 

 with the sea. On land, too, these wide circling sweeps 

 had had a grace and charm, but it had not entirely 

 pleased the eye. Something had been absent, but 

 what that something was, it had been beyond me to 

 say. Now, I knew it. What it wanted had been the 

 illimitable plain of the ocean which, in a moment, took 

 away all heaviness from the form and all harshness 

 from the colouring. The sombreness of the sea 

 blends now with its own, and the waves are moving 

 with its own motion. All is in harmony, the picture 

 has found its frame." Gulls, too, are more graceful 

 when they sweep over the sea than the shore near it. 

 They have then softness and expanse as a back- 

 ground. The latter, I think, is the more important, 

 and may be unconsciously demanded by association 

 of ideas. Earth had not been wide enough for the 

 great skua. 



Often when one of the great skuas is circling 



