CHAPTER XXXVI
COMPARING NOTES
WHO would have thought that this same gull—the herring-gull—which kills and devours the young kittiwakes and puffins, besides living, habitually, on fish, crustaceans, molluscs, and any garbage it can find, is also a fruit-eater? It is, though, since the black berries of the stunted heather, here, are certainly its fruit, and these it eats, not as an occasional variation of diet merely, but systematically and with avidity. Indeed, these berries, now that they are ripe, seem to me to be the bird's favourite food. I will now give the evidence on which this statement is founded, and which I think will be admitted to be conclusive. During the last week of my stay here, I began to notice, more and more, as I walked over the ness, droppings of some bird, which were of a dark blue, or purple, colour—in fact, a very rich and beautiful dye. These droppings were full of the small seeds of some plant, and upon comparing these with the seeds of the heather-berries, I found them to be the same. They were too large and too numerous to be due to any birds except either gulls or skuas, and as I constantly found them over the domains of the Arctic skua, I thought at first, "Ye are their parents and original." One morning, however, whilst sitting on the rocks, watch-
365
