204 
BIRDS IN A VILLAGE. 
white than blue, and gave a hoariness and cloud- 
like remoteness to the arches spanning the water, 
and the vast buildings on either side, ending with 
the sublime dome of the city cathedral ; and when 
out of the pale motionless haze, singly, in twos and 
threes, in dozens and scores, floated the mysterious 
white bird-figures ; first seen like vague shadows in 
the sky, then quickly taking shape and whiteness, 
and floating serenely past, to be succeeded by 
others and yet others. 
It was not merely the ornithologist in me that 
made the sio-ht so fascinatinor since it was found 
that others — all others, it might almost be said — 
experienced the same kind of delight. Crowds of 
people came down to the river to watch the birds ; 
workmen when released from their work at mid- 
day hurried down to the embankment so as to 
enjoy seeing the gulls while eating their dinners, 
and, strangest thing of all, to feed them with the 
fragments ! I was told by a youth, a porter in a 
printing-house, that one day, not feeling very 
hungry, he gave the whole of his dinner to the 
birds. Seated on the stone parapet by Cleopatra's 
Needle, he tossed the fragments into the air, and 
the hovering gulls, in their eagerness to catch the 
food the instant it touched the water, sometimes 
actually brushed his face with their wing-tips as 
they swooped down. 
