198 
WILD WINGS 
GRKATER SHEARWATER RISING 
clear, the breeze good, and the boat tossing actively on a 
rolling, dancing sea. Two suffering people lay quietly, one 
on each side of the standing-room. The skipper had a line 
overboard trying for cod, and, at my dictation, was throwing 
out fragments of liver now and then, to keep the birds baited 
up. There was the greatest imaginable flapping of wings 
going on all around us. Scores of great powerful jaegers 
were passing and repassing close about, and dashing down 
into the water to secure pieces of liver. Several at once would 
try for a piece, and the quickest would get it. There were 
shearwaters, or haglets, too, though not nearly so many. 
With great rapidity they would go winnowing along, faster 
than the jaegers, and plunge violently into the water, seize a 
piece of liver with a most comical e.xpression of greedy satis¬ 
faction, and hurry off, as they gulped it down, for fear that 
a jaeger would get it away from them. Once in flight they 
did not fear the jaegers, so swift are they on their narrow. 
