374 THE BIRD WATCHER 
one were stalking gg animal at the time, it would 
be easy to construe such action into a wish to 
protect it; but here no other creature was in 
question besides myself. The gull’s method was 
to fly to a considerable distance away, and then, 
turning, to come sailing down upon me, uttering a 
loud clangorous cry as he passed over my head. Had 
I been creeping or rowing towards a seal, it is very 
probable that in the course of these numerous flights, 
to and fro, he would have approached him more or 
less closely, and each time I might have assumed that 
he had a special object—viz. solicitude for the seal’s 
safety—in doing so; whereas the times that he did 
not do so I might have counted as nothing—for- 
getting them afterwards—or put down to general 
excitement. 
That either a gull or any other bird should take 
any interest in the fate of a seal, is to me, I confess, 
almost incredible. I have read of a curlew giving a 
sleeping one a flap with its wing, so as to wake it up. 
I doubt the motive, and I doubt it in every other 
reported case of the kind. I am quite open to con- 
viction, but it is almost always in general terms that 
one hears of these things, whereas what one wants is 
a number of detailed descriptions recounting every- 
thing that took place. There is nothing strange in 
birds becoming clamorous and excited at seeing a 
man. No doubt, they are actuated by much the same 
feelings as make the smaller ones mob a hawk, or an 
owl; but from that to the deliberate warning of 
