IN THE SHETLANDS 119 
the fulmar petrel without becoming dissatisfied, or at 
least critical, in regard to that of other sea-birds. The 
larger gulls grow hopelessly coarse and heavy ; the 
kittiwake is not what it was, something is gone from 
the bold corsair-like sweeps of the Arctic skua, and 
even in the seeming-laboured grace of the tern the 
eye begins to dwell more on the labour and less 
on the grace. All these birds are bodies : the fulmar 
petrel more suggests a soul. Something of this it 
owes to its colouring, which, though approaching 
to blue above, and of the purest-looking white below, 
yet has in it that exquisitely smoked or shadowed 
quality which allows of no glint or gleam, avoids all 
saliency, and almost seems alien from substance itself. 
It blends with the air, of which it seems to be a con- 
densation rather than something introduced into it. 
Yet most lies in the flight. In this there is conveyed 
to one a sense, not so much of power over as of actual 
partnership in the element in which the bird floats, as 
though it had been born there, as though it might 
sleep and awake there, as though it had never been, 
nor ever could be, anywhere else. It is, I suppose, 
the small apparent mechanism of the flight that gives 
this impression, the absence, or the ease, of effort. 
Sliding, as it were, from the face of the precipice, 
and often from the most towering heights of it, the 
thin cleaver-like wings are at once, or after a few 
quick, flickering vibrations, spread to their full extent, 
and on them the bird floats, sweeps, circles, now sink- 
ing towards the sea, now cresting the summit of the 
