Voyage from Liverpool to Boston - Off South Coast of Ireland.
1911.
August 2
(No 4)
[August 2, 1911]

Remarkable flight of Herring Gulls.

against a strong wind, at a speed of not less than 15 knots an
hour, yet absolutely without visible or indeed suspected, muscular effort
of any kind. Nor were they habitually doing their best for every now
and then several of them would increase their speed, perhaps very
considerably, yet without flapping their wings. They seemed, indeed,
to have plenty of it always in reserve and to be able to move at
almost any pace they liked, now accelerating, now retarding it
yet ever without obvious means of so governing it. Allen, who
watched them with me for a time, fully agreed with me that
there was here no possibility of their making use of previously
acquired momentum or of their acquiring enough of it to be of
any practical service by the occasional slight downward dips
that they made, for these were often infrequent and seldom more
than a few inches in depth. We further agreed that there seemed to
be really no limits to the distance which they could glide
at uniform or perhaps accelerating speed since we unquestionably saw numbers