On the boats they took fish freely from tho 
hands of the fishermen; the quantity they could 
stow away was something marvellous. They are 
not particular as to the nature of their food, so 
long as there is enough of it ; a rat or a bird, a 
fish or a snail, or bread and milk,will suit almost 
equally well. Tradition said that in the early 
days of our oldest inhabitants the great black- 
backed gull bred on some of the wild flats of the 
Kentish coast and in a portion of the lonely salt 
marshes of Essex. I cannot speak confidently 
as to this, but, as I have myself observed him in 
these localities, I think the fact is more than 
probable. 
The shore shooter regards him with unfavour¬ 
able eyes, for if he wounds a duck or pochard and 
the fowl drops out on the water, the cob will 
swoop down, tear it to pieces and devour it. The 
rock fowlers curse him most heartily, for he 
devours both eggs and young. I do not know why 
they should grudge him some of these, for there 
are plenty for both him and them, and to spare. 
On the grouse moors he is detested more than the 
eagle himself. He not only oats the eggs and 
kills the young there, like any raven, but the 
sitting grouse herself is not safe from him. This 
is not all ; he has the credit, how far de¬ 
served I cannot say, of killing and eating 
the young of the fierce peregrine falcon, 
if the nest is left undefended when the 
young falcons are in their down state. From 
personal observation, I do not believe that he is 
quite capable of this, for, if there is a trap baited 
for any large, rapacious bird, and the cob is in 
the vicinity, he is nearly certain to get into it. 
Marine vulture though he is styled, I have a 
great admiration for this bold bird, one of the 
| greatest ornaments of tho waters and the shores. 
Like all other creatures, he fills the place he was 
intended for to perfection — one of the police that 
nature has stationed in their, appointed beats all 
over the earth and the waters. He is a restless 
wanderer, for ever beating to and fro, when not 
asleep. I have watched him on the ocean, along 
the shores, and in the marshes, Happing up arms 
of the sea inland and around the mighty three- 
deckers of past days. I have seen him also calmly 
flying up a tidal river with houses on both sides 
of it. See him where you will, he is never put 
out or flustered ; there is no rush or hurry about 
him. A bird of mark, he is something to look at 
and to remember. They tell me ho is now rare 
where I first knew him. I should be sorry to 
know that he had left that coast for good. Yet 
never again may I see him as I saw him last, 
after a storm, tearing away at something that was 
tangled in the wreckage left by retiring waters on 
the sands — something that caused me to go 
L quickly out of sight, both of it and the cob. 
