And how terrible the declension from being “Mother Carey’s chickens,” mysteriously shaken out of the old dame’s lap in the sky to bring men to their death by drowning, to “Blasquet chickens,” picked out by ragged little islanders from the chinks in which they are hidden, and then eaten by tourists and townsfolk, fried upon toast!
Nor are these birds’ only enemies human ones, for in the predatory black-backed gulls they find untiring and cruel persecutors. As persistent and as cunning as crows, they loiter about the nesting-places of the smaller birds, searching out their eggs and young, and chasing the parents. Even large birds, like the cormorant, dare not leave their nests unprotected, as the air above is full of keen-eyed, black-backed gulls, and every eminence has its patient, sinister
watchman waiting for some incautious mother to leave her eggs exposed, and in a twinkling the thief pounces on it.