would think, to every creature in it—I saw another kittiwake being savagely murdered by another herring-gull. This was a repulsive sight, and through the glasses I could watch it closely, not a detail escaping. The gull, with the hook of its bill fixed in the kittiwake's throat, pressed it down on the water, shook it with violence, paused, got a better purchase, shook it again, then, opening and gobbling up with the mandibles, seemed to be trying to crush the head, or compress the throat, between them. By this the young bird's struggles, which had been of an innocent and quite ineffectual kind, had almost ceased, but its legs still kicked in the air as it lay on its back in the water—just as the other had lain on the rock. The gull now, having managed the preliminaries, ceased to be so rough and violent, but, backing a little out from the body, so as to get the proper swing, began, in a cold, deliberate manner, to pickaxe down into the exposed breast, each blow ending in a bite and tear. A crimson spot, becoming gradually larger and larger till it represented almost the whole upper surface, as the body cavity was laid open, responded to this treatment; and now the gull, seizing upon entrail and organ, helped each backward pull with a flap or two of the wings, feasting redly and royally.
So it goes on, and, in time, both the part-players in this little sample fragment of an infinitely great whole are drifted by the waves to that same towering "stack" which has lately been the scene of the puffin
