114 THE OCEAN. 
a predatory excursion, returns to his partner, with 
five or six herrings in his gorge; these she very 
complacently pulls out one by one, with much ad- 
dress. Marten says that they frequently rob each 
other, and that one which had pillaged a nest, artfully 
flew out towards the sea with the spoil, and returned 
again, as if it had gathered the stuff from a different 
quarter. The owner, though at a distance trom his 
nest, had observed the robbery, and waited the re- 
turn of the thief, which he attacked with the utmost 
fury. “This bloody battle,” adds the narrator, 
“was fought above our heads, and proved fatal to 
the thief, who fell dead so near our boat, that our 
men took him up, and presently dressed and ate 
him.” 
