120 THE BIRD WATCHER 
cliff,’ but keeping, for tHE most part, within the middle 
space between the two. Ever and anon it sails 
smoothly in to its own rocky ledge, pauses above it, 
as though to think “‘ My home!” then, with another 
quick shimmer or flicker of the thin shadow-wings, 
sweeps smoothly out again, to enter once more on 
those wonderful down-sliding, up-gliding circles that 
have more of magic in them, and are more drawn 
to charm, than had ever a necromancer’s. 
This light flickering of the wings, as I have called 
it, for they cannot be said to flap or beat—even quiver 
is too gross a term for so delicate a motion—is a 
characteristic part of the fulmar petrel’s flight. They 
move for a moment—for a few seconds more or less 
—in the way in which a shadow flickers on the wall, 
and then the bird glides and circles, holding them 
outspread and at rest, opposing their thin, flat surface, 
now to this point, now to that, by a turn of the head 
or body, but giving them no independent motion. 
Then another flicker, and again the gliding and circ- 
ling. When spread thus, flat to the air, the wings 
have a very thin, paper-knifey appearance. The simile 
does not seem worthy either of them or of the bird, 
but as it is continually brought to my mind, I must 
employ it, albeit apologetically. It is the shape of 
them that suggests it. Their ends are smooth and 
rounded, and they are held so straight that they seem 
1 The idea that the fulmar petrel never flies over the land is a delusion. I have 
often seen it do so, though that is not its habit. It goes but a trifling way, however, 
cutting off a cape or corner, and returns almost immediately. 
