THE BRITISH PELICAN 83 



mendous noise and much squabbling, each bird 

 fighting to deprive his neighbour of the fish he 

 picks up. This lasts until the gannets, having 

 quickly digested their first meal or got rid of it 

 by drinking sea-water, return with a fresh appetite 

 for a second one, and the poor gulls are once more 

 compelled to leave that delectable spot, teeming and 

 glittering with myriads of rushing, leaping, terrified 

 pilchards. 



At other times, when fishing-birds are attracted to 

 one spot by shoals of mackerel, herring, sprats or 

 pilchards, gulls and gannets feast together very com- 

 fortably, and as the gulls take good care not to get in 

 the way of their too energetic neighbours there are 

 probably no accidents. Occasionally at such times 

 they have an opportunity of feeding on the launce or 

 sand-eel, a favourite food of all the rapacious crea- 

 tures, fish and fowl, that get their living in the sea. 

 The launce is a long slender eel-like silvery fish that 

 has the curious habit of burying itself in the sand, 

 and it is said that when out feeding if pursued it in- 

 stinctively darts down to the bottom of the sea to 

 escape by burying itself in the sand. Bass and pol- 

 lack are the greatest persecutors of the launce, and 

 when a number of these greedy fishes come upon a 

 shoal of sand-eels in deep water they get beneath 

 them to hold them up, and surround them as well to 

 prevent their escape. Day, in his British Fishes, states 

 that pollack have been observed acting in this way on 

 the coast of Norway ; but many Cornish fishermen 

 have witnessed it too, though it has not been de- 



