CHAPTER’ XVITI 
LEARNING TO SOAR 
I HAD not before imagined that the puffin was one 
of those birds that suffered from the extortions of 
the Arctic or lesser skua, but I have found it out 
to-day without knowing whether it is in a British Bird 
book or not. Twice have the two passed me, close 
together, and flying with tremendous velocity, their 
wings—especially, I think, those of the skua—making 
a portentous sound just above my head. The puffin, 
though hotly pursued, was a little in front, and such 
was his speed that it seemed doubtful if the skua 
would overtake him. I suppose, however, that the 
latter must be competent to do so, or, having learnt 
otherwise by experience, he would long ago have 
ceased giving chase. 
The puffin, like the partridge and other birds that 
progress by a succession of quick strokes with the 
wings, flies with great rapidity. He is so small and 
light that perhaps one ought not to be surprised at 
this, so I reserve my wonder for the guillemot. How 
this solid and weighty-looking bird can, with wings 
that are small out of all proportion to its bulk, 
narrow to a degree, and by no means long, get 
through the air at the rate it does, how it can even 
stay in it at all and not come plump down like the 
wooden bird that it looks, is to me a mystery. The 
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