Here it is evident that the sea-mall, sea-mew, or sea-gull, is intended, the young birds being taken before they could fly. Young sea-gulls were formerly considered great delicacies, and in the old “Household Books” we often find such entries as the following:—
“Item, it is thought goode that See-gulles be hade for my Lordes own mees and non other, so they be goode and in season, and at jd. apece or jd. ob. at the moste.”
The description of their haunts which the poet gives us in the fourth act of King Lear cannot be easily forgotten. We seem to stand when reading it upon the very edge of the cliff!—
“How fearful
And dizzy ’tis to cast one’s eyes so low!
… the murmuring surge,
That on the unnumber’d idle pebbles chafes,
Cannot be heard so high.—I’ll look no more,
Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight
Topple down headlong.”