24 THE LAND'S END 



men, I remarked that if a bird collector happened to 

 be about he would certainly have that bird even if 

 compelled to fire into the whole crowd of gulls to 

 kill it. " Then," he returned, " perhaps our men 

 would kill him ! " 



The curious point is that this feeling should exist 

 and be so strong in a people who have little or no 

 regard for birds generally. The most religious of 

 men, they are at the same time the least humane. 

 The gull they tell you is the fisherman's friend ; but 

 other sea-birds, which he kills without compunction 

 the gannet, for instance are useful to him in the 

 same way as the gull. They also say that the gulls 

 keep the harbour sweet and clean ; an explanation 

 probably invented for them by some stranger within 

 their gates. The fact is, they cherish an affection 

 for the gulls, though they refuse to confess it, and, 

 being what they are by race, this feeling has ac- 

 quired the character of a superstition. To injure 

 a gull wilfully is to invite disaster. It may be 

 that the origin of the feeling is simply the fact that 

 gulls gather in vociferous crowds round the boats and 

 in the harbour when the fishing has prospered, and in 

 this way become associated in the fisherman's mind 

 with all those agreeable ideas or images and emotions 

 connected with a good catch smiles and cheerful 

 words of greeting in the home, with food in abun- 

 dance, money for the rent and for needed clothes and 

 other good things for the little ones. 



On the other hand we may have here a survival of 

 an older superstition, a notion that gulls are in some 



