90 WILD BIRDS 



or added to, in Southern Europe by the Cleopatra 

 brimstone which has two large blotches of orange 

 on the sulphur ? Why should our orange tip butter- 

 fly be represented there by the " Glory of Provence " 

 butterfly, which has the orange tips laid on sulphur 

 instead of on white ? Why does Nature paint 

 the lily thus ? To say that she does so because the 

 sun shines brighter and longer there this is no reply. 

 Besides, she does not always do so. Some of the 

 chief butterflies of the Tropics are black and white : 

 what they lack in lustre they make up perhaps by 

 the brave cut and pattern of their wings. 



ARCHERS AND CLIMBERS 



One day whilst I was watching the herring gulls 

 and saddlebacks of the Trevalga Cliffs they soared 

 to a great height. This was half a mile from the 

 sea, and on a stormy afternoon. They swept up the 

 glen and swung round and round and up and up in 

 circles till the highest climber of them all seemed to 

 be hanging a mile above me. 



As they streamed and sailed aloft, they broke 

 into a tumult of voices, wailing and mewing just as 

 when I visited their nesting rocks " a mighty unison 

 of streams, of all her voices one." 



The meaning of these grand concerts of music and 

 motion among gulls when the air is full of storm is 

 obscure, though the thing is not at all uncommon. 

 I remember seeing it over London on dark days of 

 high wind in autumn or winter, herring gulls and 

 blackheaded gulls soaring and spiring high over St. 



