A favourite pastime of mine during the winter months was to feed these park gulls with sprats, which were plentiful and could be bought anywhere for one penny a pound, or in quantities for about a farthing the pound. Gulls cannot live by bread alone; it is true that even in London they do not, like the blubber-eating Greenlander, spew it out of their mouths, for they will eat almost anything, but it is not partaken of with zest, and even with a crop-full they do not feel that they have dined. However much bread they had had, no sooner would they see the silvery gleam of a little tossed-up sprat than there would be a universal scream of excitement, a rush from all sides, and the whole white vociferous crowd would be gathered before me, almost brushing my face with their wings, sweeping round and round, joyfully feasting on the little fishes, cast to them in showers, to be deftly caught before they touched the water.
FEEDING THE GULLS IN ST. JAMES’S PARK
Some of the birds, bolder or more intelligent than their fellows, would actually take the sprats from the hand.
A very few days before writing this chapter end, on January 30, 1898, I passed by the water and saw the gulls there, where indeed they have spent most of the daylight hours since the first week in October. It was a rough wild morning; the hurrying masses of dark cloud cast a gloom below that was like twilight; and though there was no mist the trees and buildings surrounding the park appeared vague and distant. The water, too, looked strange in its intense blackness, which was not hidden by the silver-grey light on the surface, for the surface was everywhere rent and broken by the wind, showing the blackness beneath. Some of the gulls—about 150 I thought—were on the water together in a close flock, tailing off to a point, all with their red beaks pointing one way to the gale. Seeing them thus, sitting high as their manner is, tossed up and down with the tumbling water, yet every bird keeping his place in the company, their whiteness and buoyancy in that dark setting was quite wonderful. It was a picture of black winter and beautiful wild bird life which would have had a rare attraction even in the desert places of the earth; in London it could not be witnessed without feelings of surprise and gratitude.
We see in this punctual return of the gulls, bringing their young with them, that a new habit has been acquired, a tradition formed, which has given to London a new and exceedingly beautiful ornament, of more value than many works of art.