IN THE SHETLANDS 351 
five, perhaps longer—before the kittiwake was floating, 
breast upwards, on the water, and being disem- 
bowelled—a horrid sight. Yet this gull could not 
have been very hungry, for he allowed another one— 
no doubt his partner—to approach and eat with him. 
A young gull was vigorously chased away, not by 
him, but by this other bird, who never let it come 
near. Neither was the favoured gull really hungry, 
for, very soon, the body was abandoned by both the 
birds, and then fell to two others, a young and an old 
one. Here, too, the old bird would no doubt have 
driven the young one away if its appetite had been at 
all keen. Probably they had all been kittiwaking in 
the earlier morning, and were now fairly sated. But 
all animals that live by killing—taking life in a chasing 
way—are sportsmen ; they enjoy the killing, that is to 
say, for its own sake. I can see no difference, here, 
between the animal sportsman and the human one. 
Manifestly there is none, for no one, I suppose, with a 
brain in his head, can be led astray by all that irrele- 
vant insistence on unessential distinctions, with which 
sportsmen seek to disguise the real nature of their 
ignoble pleasure—law, grace, close-time, and all the 
rest of it—differentiating themselves, to their own 
satisfaction, not only from their fellow beasts of prey, 
but from poachers, with whom they are essentially one, 
but for whom a far better case can be made out than 
for themselves. 
What makes, or helps to make, these scenes so very 
unpleasant, is the prosaic and unimposing manner 
