350 THE BIRD WATCHER 
much more numerof@ here than even the lesser black- 
backed, which is the reason, I suppose, why they 
seem to stand out in this character. I do not mean 
to brand them specially, or, indeed, at all. (Why 
cannot it be recognised that to blame any one, for 
anything, is to blame the Deity?) It is gull nature, 
and that is not the worst kind, after all. Though I 
did not see the actual commencement of this affair, 
I must have all but seen it, as a party of young kitti- 
wakes that had been bathing near the ledges flew up 
all at once, and this 1 have no doubt was when the 
attack was made. Immediately afterwards, I saw the 
gull mauling and throttling one of them, in the way 
I have before described. I feel sure that if it had 
swooped to the attack, like a hawk, I must have seen 
it, and therefore I have no doubt it had been swim- 
ming amongst the troop, at the time, for only yester- 
day I had noticed two herring-gulls within a few feet 
of some young kittiwakes on the water, without the 
latter seeming to be in the least alarmed. Probably 
these gulls—whose plumage, by the way, a good deal 
resembles that of the adult kittiwake—swim quietly 
amongst them, and, all at once, seize on one. This 
poor little thing struggled, as well as it could, with its 
destroyer, and, several times, got loose and began to 
fly away; but the gull was after it, and caught it, 
again, before it had risen above a foot from the water. 
As before (or nearly) it seized it by the throat, near 
the head, and then kept compressing the part between 
its strong mandibles. It was some minutes—perhaps 
