THE SEA HAWK 177 
become aware that ours was a permanent estab- 
lishment, regularly the great birds arrived at 
dusk, banging to earth on the tiny clearing with 
clumsy force and scorn of all concealment. They 
were monarchs of all they surveyed. On their 
alighting ground there were few stumps or branches, 
there was little risk of damage to the splendid 
pinions of these overlords of the islet. Besides 
this space by the hut there were other ribbons 
of open ground frequented by the Sea Hawk. 
These were the pathways cut by the “ birders” ; 
on them, too, gleanings of the Petrel crop were 
gathered by day as by dusk. At noon even I 
have met Sea Hawk on these cleared tracks, for 
each evening on the smallest islet it happens that, 
in their earthward fall through scrub, numbers 
of Petrel are hurt or hung up snared by neck or 
wing or leg. It is in search of these that the 
pathways of the island are perambulated and 
patrolled. Petrel know not danger of this sort 
on the ocean; they experience it only as presage 
to immediate death, and cannot therefore develop 
wisdom racially. These unfortunates are the Sea 
Hawk’s daily bread. 
So much so indeed has the species become 
habituated to this manner of replenishing its 
larder by broad day that, when an hungered, it 
straggles from the paths and ranges the entire 
island. A wandering bird thus discovered invites 
M 
