SEA BIRDS 141 



have seen them from Ventnor in the approach the shore by the mouths of 

 Isle of Wight. Swimmers though they estuaries. In grace and power of 

 were, they could get nothing from motion they excel. Their empire is 

 the Channel of all it contained, save the wing : theirs is the very poetry 

 what it chose to cast ashore. I have of flight. They are tireless. In the 

 a vivid mental picture of a group of distances they range over, in the vast 

 about a score, flying greedily around areas they scan by the way, some- 

 something that had floated out into thing is sure to float or be stranded, 

 the water. On that they wait. They see the 



More attractive, by reason of the glitter of the shoals beneath the sur- 



purity of plumage, the uprightness face myriads on myriads, and pass 



of gait, and the bold, trumpet-like by. They are sea birds in so far as 



music of its repeated call, is the herring they are found by the sea, wear the 



gull. Moving, with slow and stately livery of the sea, and have sea cries, 



steps of the flesh-coloured legs, by the Yet in all the aeons they have been 



water edge, it forms a background to there, long enough to borrow marine 



the lesser gulls on the banks. The hues and conquer the buffeting winds, 



serried ranks mock the lines of break- they have never acquired the simple 



ing waves. The making tide floats arts of getting a living from the sea. 



them. Deeper and further out they Terns are sufficiently near in toning 



sit on the flood ; only to pass the to be confused by the unobservant 



time till the ebb, and the return to with gulls. They wear a black cap 



the shore. on the very crown of the head. They 



The line which marks off certain come about the end of April, and leave 



great gulls, the most wonderful of toward the end of September. They 



our native sea-fowl, is drawn sharply are scattered along our summer coasts, 



between the lesser and greater black- thinly, and yet without a break. Each 



backs. The giants include the glau- pair seems to have its beat marked 



cous, and Iceland gulls. To the north off by invisible boundaries. At either 



they increase in number. In Shetland, edge one beat touches on another, 



they are regular winter visitors. To- in a long, bright, quivering line, 



ward the arctic circle they thin out, Short and weak in the legs, they 



and give place to the great white come nearest to the kittiwakes. They 



gull of the ice floes. These forms are not walkers. Yet they are not 



