nishment when, in the first October gale, not
only did the visitor return, tapping at the dining-room window for
admission, as it had always done, but actually brought with it a young
gull, and the two paid him a visit every autumn for a number of years.

On either side of the gulls, and closely associated with them in habits
and in structure, is a group of birds equally characteristic of the open
coast, the skuas and terns. The skuas, darker and more courageous birds,
are familiar to those who spend their August holiday sea-fishing near
the Land's End, where, particularly on days when the east wind brings
the gannets and porpoises close inshore, the great skua may be seen at
its favourite game of swooping on the gulls and making them disgorge or
drop their launce or pilchard, which the bird usually retrieves before
it reaches the water. This act of piracy has earned for the skua its
West Country sobriquet of "Jack Harry," and against so fierce an
onslaught even the largest gull, though actually of heavier build than
its tyrant, has no chance and seldom indeed seems to offer the feeblest
resistance. These skuas rob their neighbours in every latitude; and
even in the Antarctic one kind, closely related to our own, makes havoc
among the penguins, an episode described by the late Dr. Wilson, one of
the heroes of the ill-fated Scott expedition.

Far more pleasing to the eye are the graceful little terns, or
"sea-swallows," fairylike creatures with red legs and bill, long pointed
wings and deeply forked tail, which skim the surface of the sea or hawk
over the shallows of trout streams in search of dragonflies or small
fish. It is not a very rare experience for the trout-fisherman to hook a
swallow which may happen to dash by at the moment of casting; but a much
more unusual occurrence was that of a tern, on a well-known pool of the
Spey, actually mistaking a salmon-fly for a small fish and swooping on
it, only to get firmly hooked by the bill. Fortunately for the too
venturesome tern the fisherman was a lover of birds, and he managed with
some difficulty to reel it in gently, after which it was released none
the worse for its mistake.

SEPTEMBER

BIRDS IN THE CORN

BIRDS IN THE CORN

More than one of our summer visitors, like the nightingale and cuckoo,
are less often seen than heard, but certainly the most secretive hider
of them all is the landrail. This harsh-voiced bird reaches our shores
in May, and