THE SEAGULL 



hood of Maryport, seeing an immense number 

 of gulls turning up the soil in close proximity 

 to several crows that, dangling from gibbets, 

 effectually kept all black marauders away. 

 Young gulls are, to the careless eye, apt 

 to look larger than their parents, an illusion 

 possibly due to the optical effect of their 

 dappled plumage, and few people unfamiliar 

 with these birds in their succeeding moults 

 readily believe that the dark birds are younger 

 than the white. Down in little Cornish har- 

 bours I have sometimes watched these young 

 birds turned to good account by their lazy 

 elders, who call them to the feast whenever 

 the ebbing tide uncovers a heap of dead 

 pilchards lying in three or four feet of water, 

 and then pounce on them the moment they 

 come to the surface with their booty. The 

 fact is that gulls are not expert divers. The 

 cormorant and puffin and guillemot can 

 vanish at the flash of a gun, reappearing far 

 from where they were last seen, and can 

 pursue and catch some of the swiftest fishes 

 under water. Some gulls, however, are able 

 to plunge farther below the surface than 

 others, and the little kittiwake is perhaps the 

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