THROUGH THE YEAR 91 



James' Park, and near and over the river. The 

 wailing voices of the birds might give the idea that 

 they were confused and disquieted by the threaten- 

 ing weather, and were hanging about between the 

 stormy shore and their feeding fields inland uncertain 

 what to do. And it may be that high winds and 

 louring skies confound the gulls. But it would be 

 hard to give a good reason for this, seeing how much 

 at ease herring gulls and saddlebacks are in ordinary 

 storms. 



Whatever the cause, the sight is fascinating. 

 The gulls are not perhaps the perfect example of 

 soaring and spiring flight. They do not engage in 

 it so often or carry it out with such finish as some 

 of the falcons and hawks and eagles. But it is 

 real soaring and spiring ; the same force that lifts 

 the eagle or the condor lifts the herring gull and 

 saddleback, and winds it round and round with 

 wings full stretched ; the same, too, with that 

 humbler climber of the air, the rook. 



No theory of flight and no theory of the action 

 and movements of the air account well for this feat 

 of mounting by inaction into stormy heights and 

 floating there without sign of effort. Upward 

 currents of air sucking the birds from the earth to 

 the clouds is the common theory. The sea gulls 

 give some support to the theory by the way in which 

 they often swim and spire upward on rigid or all 

 but rigid wing over cliffs where there is a strong 

 upward current. A hard wind blows in from the 

 sea against the side of the cliff wall, and is deflected 



