140 THE BOOK OF THE OPEN AIR 



There are chances of which the gull It dons it, not all at once, but lingers 



knows how to avail itself. Some com- over the process. It runs a dark line 



motion is going on in the depths, an over the crown, to define the area 



enemy is at work among the shoals, to be coloured, and proceeds to fill 



The scared fish seek the surface, in a in, down to the base of the coral bill, 



wild rush for life : even leap from the It is a mistake to say that it does 



water. But a chance meal does not not readily take to the water. 



make a living, nor does the scene of At flood it rides in the shallows, 



chance meals make a living place, sitting high as a cork, and bobbing 



Between the chances, are intervals lightly over the ripples. It is a 



long enough to clear every gull from floating bird. Of all gulls it is per- 



the face of the waters. haps the furthest from diving. So 



In lavish moods, the sea is sovereign loose and slight is its grip of keel, 

 in her gifts. Her storms are mag- that no one could imagine how it 

 nificent, alike in their destruction and could get under water. It is most 

 their bounty. What they tear from at home on the banks of the ebb, pad- 

 the depths they toss to the haunters dling about on its red stilts with quick, 

 of the shallows and the shore. She short, mincing steps. It is a walk- 

 scatters over the sand banks, she piles ing gull. Nor does the webbing of 

 up along high-water "mark. But the feet make it awkward. And, being 

 storms are episodes, impulses; far preternaturally sharp, it can pick 

 separated by placid intervals, when up what is brought in on the wash 

 the wavelets simply lap, bearing no- of breaking waves, 

 thing in. Gulls wait upon the moods Five hundred feet above the surf, 

 of the sea. And in repeated trumpet in Shetland, I have watched the 

 notes, tell their fierce joy. In the kittiwakes swimming below. Every 

 main, they scan a barren shore, and ledge between seemed crowded with 

 turn empty away. their young, in immature plumage, 

 The most familiar is the black- with the charming crescent of black 

 headed gull, partly because it is round the neck. Lower set, and short- 

 the pertest. It passes through the toed, they are at the opposite extreme 

 most striking seasonal change. In from the upright black-head. They 

 spring it puts on a black or brown are swimming not walking birds. So 

 head, and puts it off again in autumn, it was in the summer. In winter I 



