TWILIGHT AND DAWN 131 
arrested with wings outspread or partly spread. 
Often and often have I listened amazed at the 
patient indifference of birds thus delayed in 
descent—a kind of trapping that would instantly 
drive a land bird wild with terror. The Mutton 
bird behaves indeed as if all attitudes of rest on 
land were equally uninviting, as if, lacking the 
support of the deep sea, all modes of quiescence 
were indifferently unalluring. 
There is nothing, in fact, more extraordinary 
in the evening fall of birds than their air of dazed 
bewilderment on land. Having touched ground, 
whether by direct drop, flutter through tree-tops, 
or running alightment on naked peat slope, they 
move at random, purposelessly. For minutes 
together they will sit alone, motionless, then 
perhaps in an aimless way shift a few feet, even 
a few inches, and then again pause. Sometimes 
in a perfunctory manner a little dilettante scratch- 
ing will be done; at other times for minutes 
together they will squat with head leaning towards 
a burrow—any burrow. In this stupefied con- 
dition they can be stroked with the hand. They 
seem, indeed, hardly in possession of their senses, 
and, as can be imagined, fall the easiest of prey 
to the Sea Hawk, who move about among them 
like butchers amongst penned sheep. 
Watching their unconformity, extraneousness, 
and detachment to their new surroundings, I have 
