Ornithological Observations in Shetland. 263 



a beautiful morning — the sun of summer through the mists of 

 autumn — even preening seems in abeyance. There are more 

 Herring Gulls than yesterday, more than a dozen, young and 

 old. There may be twenty. Whilst my glasses are full upon 

 them, there is a sort of electric thrill or startle through the 

 entire phalanx. All are now on their feet, seem to give a shake 

 or ruffle of the plumage, and the next instant, all rise into the 

 air and fly out over the loch — not one bird is left upon the 

 ground. After circling and sweeping about for a moment or 

 so, they all come flying back, but go down some little way 

 farther off than where they were before. Careful searching 

 with the glasses fails to discover any cause for this sudden 

 simultaneous vacation and quick return. There seems ab- 

 solutely nothing that can have startled the birds. No figure, 

 either of man or beast, appears. I myself am too far off to 

 have been able to put them to flight, had I tried, both by voice 

 and gesture — considerably further than when I watched them 

 on the previous occasions without their being in the least 

 disturbed by me. Why, indeed, should they be, since all 

 gulls here are quite familiar with man, and trouble themselves 

 very little on his account ? Moreover, had the birds really 

 been frightened, they would certainly not have behaved as 

 they did. Nothing in their actions spoke of fear, but everything 

 of enjoyment, on the bird plane. A sudden outbreak of 

 spirits on the part of any individual bird or animal may not 

 surprise us, though it seems curiously human, but that it 

 should be simultaneously shared in by more than a hundred, 

 who have all, up to a moment previously, been in a state of rest 

 and quiescence, and of whom no one could, on account of inter- 

 posing bodies, have been so placed as to be able to see all the 

 others, is certainly a puzzling phenomenon. It has the appear- 

 ance, indeed, of a miracle, which it is, or as much as any other, 

 since a miracle, if substantiated, is only something of which the 

 cause is unknown. Man never wonders but through ignorance, 

 for in nature, as apart from mere human sensation, one thing 

 is neither more nor less wonderful than another. At least I 

 venture that proposition. 



Striking again for the east coast, I passed the loch mentioned 

 in my entry of yesterday, on whose banks there is another 

 large gull meeting-ground, which was now quite deserted. 

 By another loch, quite inland, a good many Herring Gulls 

 were assembled, but before I could get to a coigne of vantage, 

 from which to watch them, they rose (I cannot in this instance 

 say under what circumstances) and flew towards the sea. All 

 were Herring Gulls. Later, whilst walking along the same 

 cliff, as yesterday, I saw, when some way off, another assembly 

 of these Gulls, standing on the green head of one of those 

 bastion-like bulgings of the precipice so frequent here, owing 

 to the erosion of the sea on either side any promontory, 



917 Aug. 1. 



