198 



WILD WINGS 



GREATER SHEARWATER RISING 



clear, the breeze good, and the boat tossing actively on a 

 rolling, dancing sea. Two suffering people lay quietly, one 

 on each side of the standing-room. The skipper had a line 

 overboard trying for cod, and, at my dictation, was throwing 

 out fragments of liver now and then, to keep the birds baited 

 up. There was the greatest imaginable flapping of wings 

 going on all around us. Scores of great powerful jaegers 

 were passing and repassing close about, and dashing down 

 into the water to secure pieces of liver. Several at once would 

 try for a piece, and the quickest would get it. There were 

 shearwaters, or haglets, too, though not nearly so many. 

 With great rapidity they would go winnowing along, faster 

 than the jaegers, and plunge violently into the water, seize a 

 piece of liver with a most comical expression of greedy satis- 

 faction, and hurry off, as they gulped it down, for fear that 

 a jaeger would get it away from them. Once in flight they 

 did not fear the jaegers, so swift are they on their narrow, 



