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 
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