130 LITERARY PILGRIMAGES 



time the smelt or the young herring come in to 

 make game of the seaside goldenrod by tickling 

 their toes they risk their lives. The gulls soar and 

 wheel over the shallows and tide rips, their wings 

 and bodies set and quiet like soaring monoplanes, 

 their heads hanging loosely on supple necks and 

 turning this way and that as they peer with far- 

 sighted eyes at all beneath the surface. Suddenly 

 the stays of the monoplane seem to break, the 

 wings crumple, and the bird falls to water as if 

 shot, going often beneath the surface. In a second 

 he emerges with lifted bill and you see the silvery 

 flash of some unlucky fish disappearing down the 

 capacious gullet. Often this is a polite morsel, 

 but not always. The gull is not over particular in 

 his mouthfuls, and I have seen one take a herring 

 as long as his own body, head first, swallowing 

 the fish as far as circumstances would permit, 

 then sitting placidly on the water with several 

 inches of shiny tail protruding, waiting, like con- 

 tinuous performance table d'hote diners, for the 

 first course to be digested so that there should be 

 room to swallow the last one. Birds of the sea 

 meet birds of the land here, and birds of the marsh 



