WATCHING GULLS AND SKUAS 109 



seemed to have the advantage in its hold, by advanc- 

 ing upon the other while never relaxing this, forced 

 its head backwards and at length right down upon 

 its back, the bird so treated being obviously much 

 distressed. At last, with a violent effort, this latter 

 got its bill free, and the two, grappling together, and 

 one, now, seizing hold of the other's wing, rolled 

 together down the steep face of the rock. At the 

 bottom they separated. The bird, as I think, that 

 had had the worst of it all along flew back to the 

 place from which they had fallen, while the other 

 remained, seeming somewhat hurt by the fall. Some 

 time later there was another conflict between the same 

 two gulls which was similar in all respects, including 

 the place at which it was fought, except in its ending. 

 This time there was no fall down the rock, but the 

 one bird flew off, soon, however, to alight again, the 

 other one pursuing and continuing to molest it with 

 savage sweeps from side to side." 



No doubt, in a fight like this, each bird seizes the 

 other by the beak, as fearing what it might other- 

 wise do with it, as two men with knives might seize 

 hold of each other's wrists. But this might become 

 in time so confirmed a habit that the birds, when 

 fighting, would have no idea of doing anything else, 

 and thus not attack each other in any less specialised 

 way, however much one might have the other at an 

 advantage. I do not mean to say that it has really 

 come to this with the gulls in question — the facts, 

 indeed, do not bear out this view — but several times, 

 when watching birds fighting, I have seen, as I believe, 

 a tendency in this direction, and it has occurred to 

 me that the process might be carried even further. 



