374 Ornithological Observations and Reflections in Shetland. 
where a right has not been established on these lines that any 
bird (or perhaps any animal) ventures to dispute it, and then 
only until it is sufficiently made out. It may be thought that 
this principle is sometimes lost sight of in human relations, 
but I believe that anything which in appearance contradicts 
it, is to be looked upon as a by-product merely. It may perhaps 
be held that though, as the weaker, the female Crow in these 
cases may be practically compelled to give way, yet that she 
does so willingly, in a spirit of wifely submission, but I have 
seen a good deal of what may be called argument on the subject, 
and it has not been of a friendly nature. 
Having feasted in a somewhat perfunctory manner on the 
foreshore, these Crows fly off to a more extended banquet over 
the land. Later they return, and regularly search the seaweed 
covered bank of rocks, skirting one side of the voe. One of 
them bluffs, as it were, a Herring Gull, feeding on the adjacent 
sands, by coming up rapidly sideways (like Mr. Winkle’s 
horse), and so causing it to give place by the mere surprise of 
the thing, as it would appear, and, on the success of this coup, 
it is joined by its partner. Later, however, the Gull having 
had time to reflect, and become slowly indignant, advances in 
a bellicose and property straight forward manner, and both 
the Crows retreating without a blow, re-enters upon his location. 
Whether a curious sort of aerial manoeuvring amongst 
these Crows, in which two of them alternately hover per- 
pendicularly over one another, the upper one dropping, at 
intervals, almost upon the back of the one beneath him, to 
rise again, as the latter swerves aside as he always does — 
whether this is the nature of combat or antic, it is not easy to 
say. 
Rock Doves also come down upon the tidal shore, and 
peck upon it, as though picking up seeds. It is not easy to 
make out what they get, but neither is it with the Ring Plovers. 
In the latter, however, it is probably small crustaceans and 
insects. If it is the same with the Rock Doves — and it is 
difficult to see what else it can be — then here is an interesting 
topographical modification of habits, as one may call it. 
A Great Black-backed Gull walks out into the receding 
waves, and apparently does her foraging on the sands which 
they cover. She makes a continuous series of jobbings down 
with her bill, in which, as she rises it, she sometimes seems to 
have something, though it is impossible to say what. Her 
young one flies up to her, and pursues the same tactics, as 
afterwards, for some time by itself. The prey may be sand- 
worms. It can hardly be fish, with such a modus operandi, 
though that there are small fish close in shore— probably in 
shoals — is shown by the actions of a Kittiwake which con- 
stantly hovers over the water there, without going farther out, 
Naturalist, 
