296 THE KITTY- WAKE AND SKUA. 



peculiar, between a scream and a laugh, and if heard in 

 their wilder haunts, among precipitous rocks, and dash- 

 ing waves, however discordant, is not unpleasing, when, 

 perhaps, it is the only sound proceeding from a living 

 thing that disturbs the solitude. Heard, as I have often 

 heard it, on the summit of cliffs eight or nine hundred 

 feet high, rising from the depths below, where each 

 individual bird looks like a floating speck of foam, it 

 gives a spirit to the scene that ever after attaches to the 

 recollection of it. Various are the species of Gulls that 

 breed upon our coasts, and various the stations they pre- 

 fer. The Kitty-wake (Larus tridactylus), so called from 

 its cry, prefers the highest and steepest crags, where it 

 perches its sea-weed nest on almost inaccessible ledges. 

 Others build on flatter shores, or less secluded places. 

 Some, like the Skua (Lestris cataractes), have been 

 called parasites, from their predaceous habits. " They 

 rarely take the trouble to fish for themselves; but 

 watching the Gulls while thus employed, they no sooner 

 observe one to have been successful than they imme- 

 diately give chase, pursuing it with fury, and obliging 

 it, from fright, to disgorge the recently-swallowed fish ; 

 they descend after it to catch it, and are frequently so 

 rapid and certain in their movements and aim, as to 

 seize their prize before it reaches the water." * From 

 the nature of their food all the birds of the family are 

 extremely oily, and many have the habit, when cap- 

 tured, of vomiting up quantities of clear oil, of a very 

 offensive smell, and this apparently as a means of de- 

 fence. The Fulmar (Procellaria glacialis), a large grey 

 * Yarrell, vol. iii. p. 603. 



