178 BIRDS OF THE WAVE AND WOODLAND 



always in attendance upon the tempest, an omen of ship- 

 wreck and sea-terror : 



" The petrel telleth her tale in vain, 

 And the mariner curseth the warning bird 

 Who bringeth him news of the storm unheard ;" 



and then for the rest of the twelvemonth it lurks in little 

 holes in rocks, under heaps of stones, in rabbit-burrows, 

 coming" out only when it is dark, a bat-like creature of dusty 

 crevices and dusky twilight, mortally afraid apparently of 

 everything that moves by day, and shunning on land the 

 men whom at sea it seemed to triumph over and to doom. 



And how terrible the declension from being "Mother Carey's 

 chickens," mysteriously shaken out of the old dame's lap in 

 the sky to bring men to their death by drowning, to 

 " Blasquet chickens," picked out by ragged little islanders 

 from the chinks in which they are hidden, and then eaten 

 by tourists and townsfolk, fried upon toast ! 



Nor are these birds' only enemies human ones, for in the 

 predatory black-backed gulls they find untiring and cruel 

 persecutors. As persistent and as cunning as crows, they 

 loiter about the nesting-places of the smaller birds, searching 

 out their eggs and young, and chasing the parents. Even 

 large birds, like the cormorant, dare not leave their nests 

 unprotected, as the air above is full of keen-eyed, black- 

 backed gulls, and every eminence has its patient, sinister 



