THE BRITISH PELICAN 81 



him have the fish, he simply turned round to get 

 away from the teasing gull, and the quiet way in 

 which he took it only emboldened the other until 

 he became quite excited and was almost violent in 

 his efforts to get the fish. Then suddenly the diver, 

 dropping the fish, turned on him and struck him like 

 lightning, driving his sharp powerful beak into his 

 neck or the base of the skull. The gull flapped his 

 wings violently once or twice, then turned over and 

 floated away, belly up, quite dead. Instantly after 

 dealing the blow, the diver went down and quickly 

 reappeared with the flounder, and resumed tossing 

 and catching it again, just as if nothing had happened, 

 while the dead gull slowly drifted further and further 

 away. 



What struck the men who witnessed the tragic 

 incident as most remarkable was the sudden change 

 in the temper of the diver, when he turned at last on 

 the other, dealt him the swift killing blow, then 

 immediately returned to his play with the fish as if 

 the slaying of that big formidable bird had affected 

 him no more than it would have done to shake off a 

 drop of water. My thought on hearing about it was 

 that the act of the diver was wonderfully like that of 

 many a human being to whom killing is no murder, 

 who kills in a casual way because of some religious or 

 ethical pr political idea, or merely because he has been 

 annoyed or stung into a fit of anger, and who, the 

 killing done, recovers his normal placid temper and 

 thinks no more about it. 



An exceedingly painful incident of this kind is 



