4 THE BIRD WATCHER 
relieve the sense of sammie: but no quite indifferent 
creature could do as much, I believe, or indeed any- 
thing. 
But with the gulls here—and still more with the 
terns—there is more than mere indifference. It is 
a disagreeable reflection that all these many birds— 
these beings everywhere about one—resent one’s 
presence and wish one away, that every one of all the 
discordant notes uttered as one walks about under 
this screaming cloud of witnesses has a distinct and 
very unflattering reference to oneself, upbraids one, 
almost calls one a name. To be hated by thousands— 
and rightly hated too! It is strange, man’s callousness 
in this respect—that he should see his presence 
affect bird and beast as that of the most odious tyrant 
affects his fellow-men, yet never sleep or eat a meal 
the less comfortably for it! So it is indeed—and 
the principle holds good as between races and classes 
of men—when-one has one’s fellow-tyrants to laugh 
and joke and chat with; but here, with but oneself 
and one’s own thoughts, the hostility of all these gulls 
begins to trouble one. There is no one to share in 
the obloquy—it falls upon you alone. You are the 
most unpopular person in the island. 
I get another odd sensation through being here. 
Gradually, as the days go on, it seems more and more 
as though gulls made all the world, and this feeling, 
which, for its singularity, I value, I can encourage by 
seeking out some spot from which the sight of all but 
them and inanimate nature is, with extra rigour, shut 
