A VOYAGE FROM LIVERPOOL TO BOMBAY. 989 
wholesome which forces him for a time to stay his hand from slaying 
and content himself with watching. I spent much of my boyhood 
prowling about stealthily, with a catapult in my hand, plotting against 
the lives of little birds. The little birds were rarely any the worse, 
and I learned more of their habits, voices, and distinguishing 
characteristics than I have ever done since. Now I go out witha 
gun, and if I meet with an unfamiliar bird, I have scarcely a chance 
of becoming acquainted with it before it ceases to be a bird and 
becomes a specimen, I have the specimen, but that is poor 
compensation, Every day I live I become more confirmed in the 
conviction that no naturalist can adopt a wholesomer motto than the 
saying of a very wise many; of whom it is recorded that ‘he spake 
also of beasts and of fowls, and of creeping things, and of fishes.” 
The saying Erefer to is this, “A living dog is better than a dead 
lion.” I suppose every ship that leaves Liverpool is followed by 
a party of gulls, which accompany it all the way down the Channel, 
but leave it as soon as they see plainly that it is bound for other 
shores. These birds have become as dependent on man as the 
common Indian crow. Without our shipping and our great 
seaports, I imagine half the gulls on the English coast would die 
of starvation. As it is, the hard times of which we hear so much, 
seem to press severely on them. On a summer day last year, not 
far from Glasgow, I was surprised to seo a large number of gulls 
at a great height in the air, crossing and re-crossing, and perform- 
ing the most energetic evolutions in which, I had ever seen gulls 
engaged. After watching them for a while, I discovered that they 
were engaged in hawking insects in the air, just as we see kites 
and crows in India preying upon a swarm of winged white ants. 
At Edinburgh I saw a number of terns engaged in the same way 
above Arthur’s Seat. The party of gulls which followed our ship 
was composed exclusively of one species, the common grey and 
white herring gull, and the easy grace of their fight supphed matter 
for never-ending wonder and admiration. With the wind, orin a 
calm, they flap their wings and fly like other birds ; but against a 
strong head wind they will keep up with the. ship, overtake it, fall 
back, rise and sink, simply by holding their wings at a 
certain angle to the wind, on the same principle on which a good 
sailing boat can go almost in the teeth of the wind. In striking 
contrast to the gulls are the puffins with their short wings and clumsy 
beaks, more like parrots at sea than orthodox water birds. These 
