THU TIMES, FRIDAY^ 
SEPTEMBER 4, 1891. 
THE GREAT BLACK-BACKED GULL. 
(by a son op the mabshes.) 
When I see a cob or a great black-backed gull 
in a collection of stuffed birds, my thoughts fly 
to a bare expanse of sands, the monotonous level 
broken by the timbers of ill-fated vessels which 
stick up here and there ; with these, the never-to- 
be-forgotten sight of dead men’s bodies, storm- 
tossed and battered from their contact with wreck¬ 
age that had, in our homely phrase, “ come 
ashore.” When the same sands are sleeping under 
the hot sun, the gulls daintily stepping along 
their edge, or floating light as a cork on the calm 
water beyond, one can hardly realize the danger 
of those treacherous, deadly quicksands, the 
Goodwins, the name of which has struck terror 
to the heart of so many a gallant sailor. 
I have seen them when a mass of foaming water ; 
boiled and hissed over them and the cry had 
reached our homes that a vessel had struck ; 
and have watched the grand seabird, as, beaten to 
leeward, it made tacks to get up again, partly 
succeeding, to be caught again by the wind and 
blown like a sheet of paper over the beach. Even 
then the “ cob’s ” courage never failed him. He 
would beat back, and flap along the breakers just 1 
off shore, marine vulture that he is, in search of 
some ghastly prey. As a child, I looked on him 
with awe, when he came on our dangerous coast 
from the open sea, and flapped to and fro over the 
sandhills, with their scanty vegetation—sea holly, I 
creeping convolvulus,and bents, diversifiedhereandJ 
there with patches of sea-kale, and then flew into 
the salt flats close at hand, where, on one leg, he ; 
would rest for a while by the side of some pool 
that glistened among tangled patches of sea blite ] 
and samphire, far enough away from the sand¬ 
hills to be out of reach of all harm, even from a 
long duck-gun. When the fishermen’s wives 
caught sight of him they would grow uneasy 
about their husbands and sons who were away 
out at sea. They said the cob knew all about 
the storm that was brewing, and had come into the 
quiet marsh to listen as it came up over the 
dreary flats. Then I would creep into some old 
crone’s dwelling, and sit listening with fear, mixed 
with a gruesome delight, to the stories of long-past 
storms and the havoc they had wrought amongst 
our folk. And, when the narrator paused to take 
breath and some strong puffs at her short black 
pipe, I thought of my friends Scoot and Winder 
outside with their fathers’ hoats, and pictured 
them drowned and driven up ashore to their 
mothers’ doors. 
Somehow, in my boyish fancy, the idea of the 
cob was always associated, too, with those daring 
old sea-dogs, incorrigible smugglers, the heroes 
of our lads, one or two of whom flashed only like 
occasional meteors across our horizon, running 
ashore at our port from time to time, then 
vanishing and being unheard of for years. When 
such a visitant was in our midst his presence 
was felt in every dwelling on the flats, and the 
social atmosphere seemed charged with an elec¬ 
tricity that was an unmixed source of joy, to the 
younger members at least of the community. 
It had been a beautiful day on one of the lone¬ 
liest parts of our lonely foreshore. After the 
heat of the sun had left the pebbly beach, a slight 
breeze had sprung up, just strong enough to stir 
the sand on the hillocks, and to cover up the 
prints of the dotterels’ feet and the traces of the 
lizards that had revelled in the warmth and been 
running about all the day long. The tide was 
coming in and the gulls beat lazily to and fro, 
looking for what it might cast before it. Curlews 
were busy with their sickle-like bills, trying to 
; get a meal before the water reached them. 
These, with a few dotterels that piped as they 
*an, were all that was to be seen in the way of 
bird-life. 
Our community of fisherfolk was moved to the 
core. The wildest and most daring of the sea 
rovers who hailed from our port had come back to 
die—he was fast nearing the last moorings. His 
noted gray brig, which it was said had only been 
seen in the most fearful weather, dashing round 
about the Goodwins, the flying Dutchman of 
those boiling seas, would never be sighted again. | 
“ He was born when the tide was full, he will 
go at its ebb,” they said. 
When the night.'came, and the moon silvered 
the waters and lit up our sandhills, the man so 
much talked of was close to his port, watched 
only by a woman as brave as himself, one 
who held many a gruesome secret in her keep¬ 
ing. True to her past she allowed no one 
to hear the last murmurs from the lips of 
her husband. Yet her head was bowed and her 
heart breaking. As the tide turned on the ebb 
in the gray of the morning he passed from her. 
The great gull brings back the scene of that 
morning, the sun shining in on a dead, upturned 
face, and a lonely, weeping woman ; two or three 
fishermen’s wives standing on the threshold of 
the open door with children clinging to their 
skirts and looking fearfully within. 
Our men used to bring home in the boats young 
cobs that had been taken from their breeding 
stations. Great, brown, speckled creatures they 
were, of most grave demeanour ; one wing was 
always carefully clipped. That grave bearing 
was not at all confirmed by their tricks and 
manners, as I have found to my cost. If you 
attempted to stroke one he would bite most 
ferociously, lacerating your fingers, and then 
setting up a querulous cry as though he, and 
not you, had been the injured party. 
I believe the men brought these young birds from 
the north—Scotland—where our fishing boats ran 
at times for fish or another produce. A certain 
man with a keen eve to business first introduced 
the birds to our folks to be turned out into their 
gardens, the cobs being such mighty hunters of 
small deer. He had tried one first himself that 
he had caught on a line and pinioned, and it 
had proved so useful that in a very short time 
not a snail or slug could be found in his garden, 
nor, said he, dared a worm so much as show 
1 itself above ground when that cob was about. 
Even the rats and mice that had swarmed about 
his pigsties vanished. One day a three-parts- 
grown rat Was seen going down the cob’s 
throat. After that all the folks who had 
.gardens wanted a young cob to put in them. 
In the season we boys used to look for¬ 
ward eagerly to the advent of the great birds 
when the boats returned from the northern fishing 
grounds. They brought a good price in those 
days. Not many, however, arkived at maturity. 
It takes three or four years for them to do that in 
a state of captivity. Like most pets, some of them 
became troublesomp, and got into trouble, too. 
From hunting in the garden, they considered 
themselves in time its sole guardians ; children, 
dogs, and cats were neither required nor allowed 
from their point of view. This idea they worked 
out at times by their bills, vulture-like cutting 
machines, to their own satisfaction, if not to that 
of their victims. Accidents occurred that did 
not always end well for the cobs. If one of the 
I young folks went to have a look at the last litter 
of pigs, for instance, and the cob slipped up 
behind and nipped a piece out of his bare 
leg a scrub broom was apt to be used in j 
retaliation at random about the cob’s body. 
Or a little maid just in her teens, re¬ 
joicing in a pair of the substantial boots made 
by our local cobbler, might have her leg bitten 
just above the tops of them, which would 
draw on the unlucky bird such a kick from the 
| metal toetips that he would meditate with ruffled 
plumage on the rough ways of the world for the 
| rest of the day. So our cobs were short-lived 
generally, and had to be frequently replaced. 
