CH. VII.] HOW TO BE ACCOUNTED FOE. 237 



finding them. The Gulls are said to have apparently 

 suffered less than the other three species, a circum- 

 stance which (as Gulls do not feed so exclusively 

 on fish) would, so far as it goes, tend to support 

 this view of the case. The second cause, that of 

 poison, though indeed possible, yet seems so ex- 

 tremely improbable, that I think it may be dis- 

 missed as scarcely worth consideration. The last, 

 that of disease, appears to me at once the simplest 

 and most probable. I can see no good reason why 

 sea-birds should enjoy an immunity from epide- 

 mics any more than land-birds Grouse, for in- 

 stance, which have suffered so severely within the 

 last few years and to some such visitation I 

 should be inclined to attribute the mortality which 

 has thus raged amongst ft them. If but one species 

 had been attacked, I should have had scarcely 

 any doubt on the subject, but there is on the 

 whole, I think, less difficulty in arriving at this 

 conclusion than any other. 



Had only a few birds been picked up on one 

 part of the coast, their deaths might have been 

 very fairly attributed to weather, but it seems 

 scarcely possible that any storm could have at 

 once so wide a range, and so extensively de- 

 structive an effect. 



