GULLS AT ST. IVES 23 



more of this bird. Two or three days later I was 

 with an artist friend in his studio, and was standing at 

 the window which looks upon a sandy cove at the 

 back of the town. By and by a wave of the incom- 

 ing tide threw up a dead dogfish about three feet 

 long on the white sand within fifty yards of the 

 window. Scarcely was the fish left by the retiring 

 water before a big white-winged gull dropped down 

 upon it the very bird I had been hoping to encoun- 

 ter again ! There it remained, trying to tear a hole 

 in the tough skin, fully five minutes before the re- 

 turning water took the fish away, so that I had a 

 good chance of examining it through a binocular. It 

 was considerably bigger than the herring gull, with a 

 much more formidable beak and altogether a bolder 

 appearance, and the entire plumage was of a chalky 

 white. It was a Glaucous gull the famous Burgo- 

 master of the Arctic Sea, probably a female in im- 

 mature plumage. In a few moments other gulls 

 dropped down to get a bite three herring and one 

 black-backed gull with some smaller gulls but they 

 were not allowed to taste the fish. When one 

 attempted to come near it the white gull looked 

 fixedly at him a couple of moments, then drawing in 

 its head suddenly tipped its beak upwards an 

 expressive gull gesture corresponding to the snarl 

 of a dog when he is feeding and other dogs approach 

 him. It produced a marked effect on the other gulls; 

 perhaps the Burgomaster, a rare visitor to our seas, 

 was known, from hearsay, to them as a great tyrant. 

 Talking of this noble stranger to one of the fisher- 



