THE GREATER BLACK-BACKED GULL. 
847 
feeder, and is commonly said by the Shetlanders — I know not 
with how much accuracy — to be the only sea-bird that will 
“ touch the human that is to say, meddle with a human 
body cast ashore or afloat. A man who had climbed to the 
nest of a pair of these birds, to take the young, found a human 
thumb which had been brought there as food. I can quite 
believe the birds to be capable of performing the amputation 
with ease, when I remember how deeply a wounded bird of 
this species once bit me through the boot. 
This Gull is a great alarmist, continually putting up the 
Ducks or whatever it may be that one is creeping after, and 
often rendering almost hopeless any attempt at stalking while 
it is near. [The old seal-shooters will aver that the Great 
Black-back has an especial friendship for the seal, carefully 
watching when danger threatens, and giving timely warning 
by its cries.* It really does seem to be the case that when the 
warning is neglected and the shooter is becoming perilously 
near, the bird will repeatedly dash into the water close to the 
seal, and so annoy it as to drive it away, while taking no 
notice of it under ordinary circumstances. There used to linger 
on the west coast of Shetland a strange belief that seals are not 
quite canny, the spirits of certain “fallen angels” in some way 
tenanting them. None will be at a loss to understand this, 
who has known what it is to be out at sea in an open boat 
crossing St Magnus’ Bay, with the solemn mournful eyes of 
a seal every now and then gazing steadily into his own, as the 
strangly human face emerges from the water only a few yards 
off, and presently sinks down again with the same unwavering 
wistful look. The peculiar cry of the seal under such circum- 
stances, a plaintive long-drawn whistle, helps to keep up the 
illusion. It is a clear flute-like note, not so very dissimilar 
to the call of the marmot, in the high Alps. My excuse for 
seeming to make so much of the alleged friendship between 
* Strangely enough, the above had no sooner gone to press than I chanced 
to light upon the graphic account of this very same thing given by Mr Knox, 
in the very pleasant pages of his “ Autumn on the Spey.” — E d. 
