WATCHING GULLS AND SKUAS 121 



which the satellite bird, assuming, at last, his proper 

 height, delivers into it, from his own, something which 

 he appears to bring up, and this, as it seems to me, is 

 swallowed by the bird receiving it. The morsel is 

 small, but the actions of giving and taking, and, after- 

 wards, the movements of the beak and throat of the 

 bird that has parted with it, are unmistakable. This 

 would appear, therefore, to be a little friendly act, or, 

 perhaps, an act of courtship — a love-token between the 

 male and female bird — and I take the bird who delivers 

 the morsel, and who is cream-marked, to be the male, 

 and the other, who is uniformly dark, the female." 



Skuas, as is well known, attack one if one comes 

 at all near to their nest, and gulls — at any rate the 

 two black-backed kinds — will sometimes, though much 

 more rarely, come very near to doing so too. For 

 instance, the greater black-backed gull swoops at one 

 backwards and forwards, in the same way (though 

 more clumsily) as do the skuas, except that he neither 

 touches you nor comes so near. Every time he passes 

 he gives a loud, harsh, tuneless cry, and drops down 

 his legs as though intending to strike with them. 

 When he does this, he may be some five or six feet 

 above one's head — a little more, perhaps, or a little 

 less — and presents an odd, uncouth appearance. The 

 skuas swoop in silence, though the great one con- 

 tinually says " ik, ik " (or words to that effect), whilst 

 circling between the swoops. " On another occasion 

 two of the lesser black-backed gulls acted in this 

 way, though one of them continued to do so for a 

 much longer time. These two seemed to be angry with 

 each other, making little motions and opening their 

 bills in the air as though each thought it was the 



