1907-1908-] The Bird L ife of an Outer Island. 9 



brother's expert hands, to have it cast very visibly at our 

 feet — accumulated, we grew to dislike these big gulls. Truth- 

 fully, the Herring Gull, — I single out the Herring Gull not 

 because he was one whit worse than his cousin and neighbour, 

 he was merely the most numerous and the most obvious 

 offender, — had never stood high in our affections ; his beautiful 

 form, the white and tender pale grey of his plumage, the erect 

 -carriage, the ease and grace of his flight, had been always 

 admired ; but the callous, almost sinister, expression of his 

 •eye, set in the cold white beetling brows, the rancorous, 

 petulant tone of his voice, the wrangling bullying fashion 

 with which he was wont to earn his daily bread among the 

 garbage heaps of a seaport or in the wake of a pleasure- 

 isteamer, had discouraged that fervent interest which the bird- 

 man, inspired he knows not how, is apt to lavish upon his 

 favourites. Now, as we came to know him better, his beau- 

 tiful form seemed nothing more than a cloak for his enor- 

 mities. As he sailed overhead distributing expletives, he 

 appeared the evil genius of the colony, and we took an almost 

 malevolent delight in thwarting his cut-throat plans, and in 

 assisting him to spend a few flat, stale, and unprofitable hours 

 awaiting our departure. He was so righteously angry and 

 resentful, that we had no qualms of conscience in keeping 

 a small party aloft for several hours at a time. It was only 

 the thought of his offspring which prevented us sometimes 

 in the heat of our annoyance from doing more, for in spite 

 of the damage which the Herring Gull was doing to the 

 young of other birds, we had no desire, curiously enough, 

 that harm should befall his own. But the baby gull is so 

 engaging and lovable a youngster in his warm, mottled coat 

 of down, so quaint and ludicrous in his precocious poses and 

 awkward gait when he takes it into his perverse mind to 

 stampede helter-skelter across the rocks on his flip-flappering 

 webbed feet, that I have known occasions, when we have 

 been in the midst of a nesting area, for the suggestion to 

 -emanate, from no less vindictive a person than C, that we 

 should remove our interfering persons to allow the infants' 

 crops to be filled. 



When you had passed within the dominion of the gulls, you 

 were on the brink of the cliff- wall, and from some coign of 



