On the Seashore / Cassell's "Eyes and No Eyes" Series, Book VII

by R. Cadwallader Smith

Perhaps you have noticed that Gulls float high in the sea, like so many corks. They can leave the water easily, and take to flight; but they cannot dive. The Gull's dinner-table is the whole coast. His eyes are keen enough, as you will know if you have watched him swoop down on a piece of bread in mid-air, and catch it neatly in his beak.

The flight of this Gull is beautiful, graceful, and easy. Sometimes he wheels up and up into the blue sky, almost without moving a wing. He can also glide for a great while, balancing his body against the wind, and turning his head from side to side on the look-out for food. Those long, pointed wings of his make him one of Nature's most perfect flying-machines. His wild, laughing cry has given him the nickname of Laughing Gull.

In the fields and along the banks of our big rivers you may see the Common Gull with numbers of his black-headed cousins. His beak and legs and webbed feet are greenish yellow, and this is quite enough to distinguish the two birds. Their habits are much the same. Both skim over the sea, or the coast, looking for waste food. They are not very "choice" in their meals; dead fish or live fish, young crabs, worms, shell-fish or grubs they eat readily, as well as any offal thrown from passing ships, or the refuse of the fish-market.

One of these scavenging birds was seen to be carrying a long object, like an eel, in its mouth. The bird was shot; and it was then discovered that the "eel" was really a string of candles! The greedy Gull had half-swallowed one, leaving the rest to hang down from its bill. The Common Gull nests in "colonies," like the Black-headed Gull. Its nest is made of seaweed, heather, and dried grass, in which it lays its three greenish-brown eggs.

Another bird to be seen along all parts of our coast, summer and winter alike, is the Cormorant, usually with a small party of his friends. They fly swiftly, one behind the other, and a long line of them reminds one of the pictures of "sea-serpents," especially as they fly quite near the surface of the sea, each one with its long neck outstretched. The Gull flies beautifully, as if he knew his power, and loved to show how he can skim and dive through the air. The Cormorant is not a flier, but a swimmer and diver; he cannot "show off" in the air, and only uses his narrow wings to take him, as quickly as may be, from one fishing-place to another.

Most of the Cormorant's time is spent in fishing, for he lives entirely on fish, and catches immense numbers of them. He spends many hours, too, in drying his wings. I once saw a number of these birds with their wings "hung out to dry." Each one was perched on a stump of wood, across the muddy mouth of a river, and each sooty-looking bird had his wings wide open in the sun. This habit seems to show that the Cormorant uses his wings, as well as his feet, in his frequent journeys under water.

The powerful webbed feet of the Cormorant, set far back on the body, the darting head, long neck, and long curved beak, tell you plainly how he earns his meals. He is a clever fish-hunter, and the fishermen, knowing the appetite of this keen rival of theirs, detest him and destroy him. In some countries there is a price on his head--that is, so much money is given for every Cormorant killed.

Sometimes the Cormorant swims slowly along with his head under water, on the watch for small fish. Seeing one below him, he dives like a flash, and can remain under water for some time; he wastes very little time, however, in swallowing his victim head first.

The great skill of this bird has been made use of, and tame Cormorants are used in China to obtain fish for their masters. They have been used in England, too, for the same purpose. A strap is placed round the bird's neck to prevent him from swallowing the catch. He is then set to work. After catching five or six fish he is recalled by his master, and made to disgorge his prey, which, of course, he has swallowed as far as the strap will permit.

The Cormorant is famous for his large appetite; he chases even big fish, of a size to choke him, you would think. Like his relative the Pelican, he owns a very elastic throat. I have seen a Pelican put a half-grown duck in its pouch, without much trouble. The Cormorant could not perform this feat, but his throat will stretch so as to allow the passage of large fish. Small fish he usually tosses up in the air, catches them neatly head first, and swallows them whole.