IV 



THE GLIDE OF GULLS 



ONE of the most enchanting things I know is the 

 nesting of herring gulls in mid-June. I went down 

 to their stack-rock eight or nine times and watched 

 that wondrous scene, with its whirl of puijfins in 

 the gold dust of a Cornish sunset. 



At the moment I have in thought the way a thous- 

 and herring gulls pass up the glen to the high plough 

 lands and pastures where they seek their supper. 

 Eve after eve, these noble white and grey birds take 

 the same route from the sea, flying in parties 

 large and small over the glen, always going up to 

 their feeding grounds low, always coming back high. 

 The journey from the sea to the fields is made by 

 wing strokes, but the return to the sea by an almost 

 strokeless, effortless glide. The quarter of the wind 

 varied on different evenings, yet, whatever the 

 quarter, the gulls stroked their way up from the 

 sea and flew twenty to sixty yards or so above the 

 topmost trees of the glen and its neighbouring fields. 

 Is it that a gull cannot glide easily or quickly in 

 these lower realms of air ?* Must he be on high to 



* The Arctic skua at any rate can glide on motionless 

 wings for many minutes at a stretch only a few feet above 

 the sea. I watched this wonderful feat in the Mediter- 

 ranean in 1911. The skua is a magical performer in flight. 



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