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Updated: June 1, 2025
True, he was not big, being only twenty-one inches two inches less than the herring-gull. But what is size, anyway? It was the fire that counted, the ferocity, the "devil," the armament, and the appalling speed.
At the end of that time Cob lay exhausted upon his side, one mighty pinion pathetically trailing in the snow, his beak open, his whole jet and spotless white body shaken and convulsed with pantings that were almost sobs. He seemed in danger of dying there and then upon the spot, with sheer, sickening horror or a broken heart. The herring-gull was a silver line about as big as a thrip to seaward.
He may or may not have known it, of course, but I feel pretty certain that he would a few thousand times rather have been standing there upon the old-gold sand, with only one eye doing duty and an unspeakable agony in the other eye, than be that herring-gull in the condition he was then, going back to the bosom of his tribe.
It had now also, for the first time, got some inhabitants of the feathered tribe: in particular the scarth or cormorant, and the large herring-gull, had made the beacon a resting-place, from its vicinity to their fishing-grounds.
Then the skua came lightly down, rocking on the wind, and settled beside the poor, draggled, white body, no longer white, upon the shingle, which had been so foully done to death by gulls of various clans. He may, or may not, have known it, but I can tell you that the gull was the self-same herring-gull who had tried to kill him the day before. Now he but we will draw a curtain here.
We are justified in thinking that this must be so because in many directions we can not only observe differences in the size of the area occupied, but can recognise a close correspondence between those differences and the conditions of life of the species. Thus the Herring-Gull occupies a comparatively small area, though one which is many times larger than that of the Guillemot.
The Lapwing, when in its territory, displays hostility towards other males of its own species, but when upon neutral ground, treats them with indifference; the Chiffchaff pursues its rival up to the boundary and is then apparently satisfied that its object has been achieved; the cock Chaffinch in March permits no other male to intrude upon its acre or so of ground during the early hours of the morning, but for the rest of the day it joins the flock and is sociable; the Herring-Gull resents the approach of strangers so long as it occupies its few square feet of cliff, but welcomes companions whilst it is following the plough all of which points to a relation between the territory and the fighting.
But the herring-gull has a shriller, more piercing voice, and resembles the black-backed species just as, in human voices, a boy's clear treble resembles a baritone. Both birds have a variety of notes; and both, when the nest is threatened with danger, utter one powerful importunate cry, which is repeated incessantly until the danger is over.
Here the crows fled to strategic positions upon bowlders, waist-deep in heather, hard by, expecting a like fate, and leaving the herring-gull to gobble up what he could in the confusion, and risk his life in the process, when suddenly, above the beating of wings and the hiss of wind, all distinctly heard, and jumped at, the sound of a single, horrible, instantaneous, metallic clash.
Is the Swallow a migrant and the Herring-Gull not; is the Tree-Pipit a migrant and the Bunting not; must a bird cross many miles of sea or of land before it can be considered a migrant; is the length of the distance traversed a criterion of migration? Surely not. The distance traversed is merely a collateral consequence of the process as a whole.
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