^^^i^'"^] Brewster, Notes on the Flight of Gulls. 85 



NOTES ON THE FLIGHT OF GULLS. 



BY WILLIAM BREWSTER. 



Every ornithologist knows, of course, that Gulls are past masters 

 of the art of making headway against strong winds. These they 

 commonly meet and overcome either by flying straight and rather 

 low over the water, with frequent if not incessant wing beats, or 

 by alternately soaring upward and swooping downward on set 

 wings, apparently utilizing as much as possible the momentum 

 acquired by such evolutions or by intermittent flapping, and 

 seeming to follow, with admirable skill and judgment, the lines 

 of least resistance. Under certain conditions, however, they 

 progress by means other than those just mentioned and with 

 surprising ease and celerity, as I have twice witnessed to excep- 

 tionally good advantage. 



On the first occasion — October 6, 1909 — I was crossing from 

 liverpool to Boston in the Cunard steamship 'Ivernia' when, 

 after passing the southeastern extremity of Ireland and laying 

 our course to the westward, we were followed, as is usual in those 

 waters, by a perfect swarm of Gulls — chiefly little Black-headed 

 and Herring Gulls with a few Lesser Black-backed and Mew Gulls. 

 Gliding, for the most part, on set and motionless wings close above 

 and around us they kept up with us without apparent effort for a 

 distance of more than one hundred miles although our ship was 

 heading within two points of a heavy wind and ploughing through 

 a tumultuous sea at a speed of sixteen miles an hour. There were 

 nearly always a dozen or more of them floating not more than 

 twelve or fifteen feet over our heads as we stood on the upper deck 

 and keeping so nearly the same positions in relation to our own 

 that whenever we regarded them intently, without taking note of 

 other surroundings, it was difficult to realize that either they or 

 we were not quite motionless. They looked, indeed, like so many 

 admirably stuffed and mounted Gulls suspended by invisible wires. 

 At such short distances and in bright sunlight I watched them for 

 minutes at a time without detecting any movement of their wings, 

 other than that due to occasional flexing or similarly slight readjust- 



