8o THE LAND'S END 



Skua of the Shetlands, a pirate by profession who 

 lives mainly on the labours of others. The gull must 

 fend for himself and levy tribute when he gets the 

 chance, when he can intimidate some other bird or 

 snatch a morsel from his beak. From the gannet he 

 gets nothing ; it would be dangerous for him to come 

 in that bird's way, and no sooner is the fish caught 

 than it is swallowed. The gannet takes no more 

 notice of the gull than of a bubble floating on the 

 surface, and probably does not even know that the 

 negligible bird regards his fishing operations with a 

 good deal of interest and hungrily wishes he could 

 have a share in the spoil. But how far gulls will go 

 in their desire to get something for nothing may be 

 seen in the following incident which was witnessed by 

 some fishermen at Sennen Cove, close to the Land's 

 End. A Great Northern Diver made its appearance at 

 the cove and spent a part of the winter there, and as 

 he was not disturbed and grew accustomed to the 

 sight of human beings he lost all shyness and often 

 fished close to the rocks where the men stood watch- 

 ing him. One day they saw him with a small flat 

 fish which he could not swallow ; it was too broad to 

 go down his gullet, but he would not let it escape 

 and continued to toss it up and catch it again, as if 

 determined to get it down somehow. Or it may 

 have been that he was only playing with it just as a 

 cat when not hungry plays with a mouse. By and by 

 a black-backed gull swam to him and began following 

 him and making snatches at the flounder each time 

 the diver tossed it up. But the diver would not let 



