THE SEAGULL 
may have no great range, but at any rate it 
is not lacking in variety, suggesting to the 
playful imagination laughter, tears, and other 
human moods to which they are hi all pro- 
bability strangers. The curious similarity 
between the note of a seagull and the whining 
of a cat bereft of her kittens is very striking, 
and was on one occasion the cause of my being 
taken in by one of these birds in a deep and 
beautiful backwater of the Sea of Marmora, 
beside which I spent one pleasant summer. 
In this particular gulf, at the head of which 
stands the ancient town of Ismidt, gulls, 
though plentiful in the open sea, are rarely 
in evidence, being replaced by herons and 
pelicans. I had not therefore set eyes on a 
seagull for many weeks, when early one 
morning I heard, from the farther side of a 
wooded headland, a new note suggestive of 
a wild cat or possibly a lynx. My Greek 
servant tried in his patois to explain the 
unseen owner of the mysterious voice, but it 
was only when a small gull suddenly came 
paddling round the corner that I realised my 
mistake. 
In addition to being at home on the sea- 
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