THE GREAT GREY GULL. 301 



Occasional battles, 



contests : one bird who has no nest of her own, 

 attempts to dispossess another, and put herself 

 in the place. This often happens among all the 

 gull-kind ; and the bird, thus displaced by her 

 more powerful invader, will sit near the nest in 

 pensive discontent, while the other seems quite 

 comfortable in her new habitation. Yet this 

 place of pre-eminence is not easily obtained ; for 

 the instant the invader goes to snatch a momen- 

 tary sustenance, the other enters upon her own, 

 and always ventures another battle before she re- 

 linquishes the justness of her claim. The con- 

 templation of a cliff thus covered with hatching- 

 birds, affords a very agreeable entertainment; 

 and as they sit upon the ledges of the rocks, 

 one above another, with their white breasts for- 

 ward, the whole group has not unaptly been 

 compared to an apothecary's shop. 



* f These birds, like ail others of the rapacious 

 kind, lay but few eggs; and hence, in many 

 places, their number is daily seen to diminish. 

 The lessening of so many rapacious birds may, 

 at first sight, appear a benefit to mankind ; but 

 >vhen we consider how many of the natives of 

 our islands are sustained by their flesh, either 

 fresh or salted, we shall find no satisfaction in* 

 thinking that these poor people may in time lose 

 their chief support. The gull, in general, as was 

 said, builds on the ledges of rocks, and lays from 

 one egg to three, in a nest formed of long grass 

 and sea-weed. Most of the kind are fishy tasted. 



