CHAPTER Ltt 
FROM DARKNESS TO LIGHT 
ro all that I have said concerning the Arctic skua 
in my last chapter (I do not say it is much) I 
will now add what the Germans call a Bezirag, on the 
subject of the multitudinous variety of colouring and 
arrangement of markings which the plumage of this 
species exhibits. 
Hitherto, indeed, I have spoken as if it were always 
of a uniformly dusky shade, but that was because I 
wanted that shade (and, indeed, it happened so to be) 
in the two that were chasing my tern. Otherwise 
they would not have suited the part I assigned them 
of twin evil geniuses, or have contrasted sufficiently 
with the white soul that they were seeking to corrupt. 
So, till that was all over, there could be no light or 
half-light skuas, but now that it is, and the effect pro- 
duced, I permit things to be as they are. 
The Arctic skua, then, is supposed by ornithologists 
—or, at any rate, that is how they are accustomed to 
speak of it—to be a bird of two different outer ap- 
pearances, independent of sex, which does not add 
another one: dimorphic we are told it is, which 
means, or should mean, that it is two- or double- 
formed, taking form here to mean colour. Two! A 
hundred would be nearer the mark, | think, but I 
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