one were stalking an animal at the time, it would be easy to construe such action into a wish to protect it; but here no other creature was in question besides myself. The gull's method was to fly to a considerable distance away, and then, turning, to come sailing down upon me, uttering a loud clangorous cry as he passed over my head. Had I been creeping or rowing towards a seal, it is very probable that in the course of these numerous flights, to and fro, he would have approached him more or less closely, and each time I might have assumed that he had a special object—viz. solicitude for the seal's safety—in doing so; whereas the times that he did not do so I might have counted as nothing—forgetting them afterwards—or put down to general excitement.
That either a gull or any other bird should take any interest in the fate of a seal, is to me, I confess, almost incredible. I have read of a curlew giving a sleeping one a flap with its wing, so as to wake it up. I doubt the motive, and I doubt it in every other reported case of the kind. I am quite open to conviction, but it is almost always in general terms that one hears of these things, whereas what one wants is a number of detailed descriptions recounting everything that took place. There is nothing strange in birds becoming clamorous and excited at seeing a man. No doubt, they are actuated by much the same feelings as make the smaller ones mob a hawk, or an owl; but from that to the deliberate warning of
