for full three hours, when one, uttering a little chattering, almost talking note, again launches himself from the verge and flies around for some three or four minutes in the near neighbourhood, with a frequent 'how, how, how.' He then re-settles just in his old place behind the other, talks a little, again flies off, returns and talks as before. The other gull has remained motionless, or almost so, all the time, and the two now stand silently as before." It seems strange that the birds should first act so mutually and then so independently of each other, but far stranger, as it struck me, was the absolute instantaneousness with which, on the first occasion, they both burst out screaming.
It is possible that close attention to animals might lead to evidence pointing in a new and unexpected direction, but I will leave this for another chapter.
Gulls have no very salient or pronounced courting antics—I mean I have observed none—and, in the same sense, there is no special display of the plumage by one sex to the other. When amorous, they walk about closely together, stopping at intervals and standing face to face. Then, lowering their heads, they bring their bills into contact, either just touching, or drawing them once or twice across each other, or else grasping with and interlocking them like pigeons, raising then, a little, and again depressing the heads with them thus united, as do they. After this they toss up their heads into the air, and open and close their beaks once or twice in a manner almost too soft to be called a snap. Sometimes they will just drop their heads and raise them again quickly, without making much action with the bills. This is
