ORNITHOLOGICAL OBSERVATION IN ICELAND. 97 



greater licence of speech is commonly indulged in — as greatly 

 wanting in poetic sensibility and appreciative perception. Never, 

 hardly, is this handsome bird mentioned without a heated de- 

 nouncement, which often takes the form of mere abuse — "brute," 

 " pest," " nuisance," and the like — but one might watch till one 

 starved before one saw it do a millionth part of the harm that 

 being able to see it does not more than a million times atone for, 

 and it would be well if those who are most unrestrained in their 

 epithets would pause, in the midst of them, and ask themselves 

 this question — just this : Whether, over the whole British coast- 

 line, there is any wild, rocky foreshore, any inlet, bay, islet, 

 " stack," " ness," or green, rounded 



. . . " Summit of the cliff 

 That beetles o'er his base into the sea," 



that could not better spare their presence than this bird's. As 

 for the delinquencies urged against it, some are fabulous or take 

 place at very long intervals, whilst others are artificial crimes, 

 merely, and of no consequence whatever to humanity, looked at 

 from a large point of view. But the high aesthetic pleasure 

 which the sight of this, the largest and most imposing of our 

 Sea-gulls, gives to all who are capable of feeling any, is of conse- 

 quence to humanity — to humanity at large, the best part of 

 humanity — and of very great consequence, too : it is a pleasure 

 analogous to, and strongly enhancing, that which the landscape 

 itself — which the very rocks and waves afford. Also there is the 

 natural history, which belongs to every species and ceases with 

 it. It is, for instance, more interesting and instructive to record 

 what I have recorded of this mobbing by Gulls of an Eagle, than 

 to get rid of the former out of mistaken sympathy for the latter, 

 which is itself being got rid of still faster. I do not say that this 

 is or is amongst the reasons brought forward for the persecution 

 of this and others of our Gulls, but, if it were, it would be on a 

 par with some that have been, and ex uno disce omnes. 



After the Eagles have thus vociferated, they continue to sit 

 together, each on its rocky spicula, for some time. They preen 

 themselves, turn themselves this way and that, seeming, from 

 time to time, to take an extended view of the blasted and 

 Hades-like landscape around them. They are very close to one 

 another, sometimes their heads seem almost touching, and one 



Zool. 4th ser. vol. XVII., March, 1913. I 



