BIRDS IN THE CALENDAR 



of rage as little as on still summer nights 

 when, in their hundreds, they fly off the land 

 to roost on the water outside the headlands. 



It is curious that there should be no men- 

 tion of them in the sacred writings. We read 

 of quails coming in from the sea, likewise of 

 " four great beasts," but of seafowl never a 

 word, though one sees them in abundance on 

 the coast near Jaffa, and the Hebrew writers 

 might have been expected to weave them 

 into the rich fabrics of their poetic imagery as 

 they did the pelican, the eagle and other birds 

 less familiar. Although seagulls have of late 

 years been increasingly in evidence beside 

 the bridges of London, they are still, to the 

 majority of folk living far inland, symbolical 

 of the August holiday at the coast, and their 

 splendid flight and raucous cries are among 

 the most enduring memories of that yearly 

 escape from the smoke of cities. 



The voice of gulls can with difficulty be 

 regarded as musical, yet those of us who live 

 the year round by the sea find their plain- 

 tive mewing as nicely tuned to that wild en- 

 vironment as the amorous gurgling of night- 

 ingales to moonlit woods in May. Their voice 

 92 



