Bird-Jjife In Labrador. 93 



waters and the air around about and above us. We could 

 have shot hundreds from the deck of our schooner, as she 

 bowled along, without apparently diminishing the number 

 about us or frightening off those already around. They would 

 often drop suddenly, as if shot, to the water beneath them, 

 where they would remain, evidently perfectly at home, keep- 

 ing pace with us almost with their swift swimming or diving 

 with incredible alacrity and remaining beneath the water for 

 several minutes to appear in some direction contrary to that 

 looked for to continue their gambols, or to take wing as sud- 

 denly as they took to the water and disappear in the distance. 

 On the approach of stormy or foggy weather this species, or 

 its neighbor the foolish guillemot, I could not learn which, 

 though perhaps it is a habit of both species, assemble in large 

 numbers near some shoal, out at sea a little ways, and seem to 

 go through with a sort of mock caucus or citizens' assembly, 

 each bird uttering a hoarse, rasping note that together can be 

 heard a mile away. From the resemblance of the sound to 

 the word used, the people call them, at such times, " gudds," 

 and the noise reminds one more of the w r rangling of human 

 voices at a " town meeting " than of anything else that I can 

 imagine. Nor at these " meetings " did the sound of our guns 

 seem to frighten them in the least ; they would simply move 

 off, in a body, farther to sea, and then continue tlieir strange 

 manoeuvres even more fiercely than ever. When in flying 

 they wish to turn in some contrary direction, they open and 

 shut the feathers of the tail as if, thereby, to more surely direct 

 or assist their motions. The people shout and wave their hats 

 at them and call out " turn-about, turn-about/' or " gtidd, 

 gudd, giuld," and various other words and expressions, think- 

 ing thereby, so they say, that the birds will turn and fly di- 

 rectly at them, and in fact it seems as if they often did this 

 very thing., Many a fine hour's sport have I had practicing 

 upon these same fellows while on the wing, and it requires a 

 good gun and a heavy charge to/ kill, at the first shot, these 

 tough, hardy birds, yet we often ate the flesh of their breasts, 



