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oyster-catcher brings us to the sea, so to sea-birds I will consecrate the next few chapters.

Gulls and skuas are best watched on some lonely island, where they breed, and thither we will now transfer ourselves.

They breed together, or, more strictly speaking, conterminously, and more than half of the whole island—all that part where it is a peaty waste clothed with a thin brown heather—is now, in early June, their assembly ground and prospective nursery. The gulls are in much the greater numbers, and all of them here are of the black-backed species, mostly the lesser of the two so named, but with a fair sprinkling of the greater black-backed also. Lying down and sweeping the distance with the glasses—for near they have risen and float overhead in a clamorous cloud—one sees everywhere the bright, white dottings of their breasts, soft-gleaming amidst the uniform