88 Brewster, Notes on the Flight of Gulls. [j^_ 



gone below it shifted to almost dead ahead and blew for half an 

 hour or more with extreme violence. The Gulls were now heading, 

 I should say, within a point and a half of it yet continuing to sail 

 into it with undiminished ease and speed. The gradual increase in 

 its strength and in the duration of their gliding flights, was accom- 

 panied by a very noticeable progressive change in the way their 

 wings were held. This is difficult to describe but essentially it may 

 be said to have consisted (1) in the more backward set of the whole 

 wing; (2) in the greater crooking or bending of the wing at the car- 

 pal joint ; (3) in the much more decided downward trend of the flight 

 quills; especially the secondaries, which were so bent down and for- 

 ward towards their tips as to give the wing when viewed from in front 

 a conspicuously incurved or hollowed aspect similar to that shown 

 by Hawks, Pigeons, etc., caught by the camera in the act of " back- 

 pedaling" just before alighting. At the height of the gale the 

 Gulls' wings were held so very far to the rear of their usual position 

 that very much of the body was shewn in advance of where they 

 seemed to join it. The neck, too, appeared to be exceptionally 

 elongated and its contour plumage, with that of the head and body, 

 unusually compressed. In other and briefer words the birds 

 seexned to have advanced as far as might be their centres of gravity, 

 to have reduced as much as possible the resistance offered by their 

 heads, necks and bodies to the wind, and to be employing its force 

 to drive them for miles, almost straight into it, by merely letting 

 it beat against their rigid and peculiarly placed and adjusted wings. 

 As I stood watching half a dozen or more of them only a few yards 

 away, sailing serenely and impassively through gusts which forced 

 me to cling with both hands to a railing to avoid being blown 

 bodily across the deck, it occurred to me that their swift and 

 effortless progress might be due, at least in part, to the impact 

 of the wind on the terminal portions of their depressed and stiffly- 

 held primaries and secondaries. That these were incessantly 

 agitated and sprung upward by the wind was plainly to be seen. 

 They must be similarly bent, of course, whenever there are strong, 

 downward strokes of the wings. Photographs of large, slow-flap- 

 ping birds engaged in ordinary flight, fail to indicate that such 

 wing strokes are often directed sufficiently backward to be alto- 

 gether or even largely in the nature of rowing movements. On 



