14 LIFE AND SPORT IN HAMPSHIRE 



in the stormy heights without a flap, no matter how 

 slight the initial impetus. How does it progress in 

 such cases ? Surely something more than that easy- 

 going flap or two a hundred or two hundred yards 

 back is keeping it up, driving it forward ? Gulls thus 

 making way against the wind look as if they were 

 being drawn through the stormy air by unseen 

 strings ; only where and who is the wire-puller ? 

 They appear to be making no effort, or at most to 

 be balancing hi the high wind, swaying or rolling 

 a little from side to side. This progress against the 

 wind with no sign of effort really strikes us at times 

 as a very miracle, contrary to all we know of the laws 

 of motion. 



But, looking intently at the gulls going forward into 

 the wind, I think that, without glasses, we may usually 

 detect what is not seen at a general and sweeping 

 glance of admiration that the tips of the wings every 

 few seconds are very slightly stirred. This keeps the 

 bird going. The stir of the wing tip is so trifling that 

 it is only seen when carefully searched for. Either 

 the air in turmoil must be exceedingly pliable and 

 workable when a feather, stiff, yet elastic, is the im- 

 plement brought to bear on it, or we may put all the 

 credit of glorious achievement to the feather, assum- 

 ing that it can triumph completely in spite of an 

 unfavouring medium, the thin air. 



I spoke of the gulls lying in the bosom of the wild 

 north-wester. To see them there is to get the idea 



