The Sea-birds’ Nursery 
on their own account whenever they 
are hungry, which is nearly always. In- 
stead of catching fish for themselves 
like honest birds, they hunt about and 
devour the eggs of their neighbours, and 
swallow their helpless young ones whole 
like so many pills. Sometimes, however, 
a flock of terns will combine and drive the 
robber away from their breeding-ground. 
Then there are the robber gulls, the 
skuas, which not only devour the smaller 
sea-fowl in the same way as the pere- 
grines, but sometimes watch them indus- 
triously fishing and then swoop down on 
them and compel them to disgorge what 
they have caught, and promptly eat it 
themselves. They are as bad as. the 
pirates which used to infest the seas in 
former times, before they were hunted 
down. 
