TA ME GULLS.
THE EDITOR Or TEE " SPECTATOR.")
SIR,—There are thousands of gulls in Wick, all of them more or less tame. I send you a photograph. They perform the same sort of service as the Constantinople dogs, and, like them, they have their beats. Each street, more especially in the east end, has perhaps three flocks, one at the top, one further down, and another at the foot, where, with shrill cries, they strut about disputing over any offal the people may throw out. Each group seems to have a leader, who as soon as he sees any potato-skins, or such-like thrown out by the housewife after dinner, throws back his head and yells at the pitch of his voice. His company immediately fall on the scraps, and when the mess is nearly cleaned up, he drives them from the field, and proceeds to pick up the fragments with a lordly sort of contempt.
We had one, Jock by name, who had his stance on an out- house at our back-door, for over twenty years. He would come down and take food from one's hand readily, more especially in winter, but he would never come down it you had a hat on. He had a way of looking sideways through the kitchen window, and it was amusing to see how eagerly he came to any one who had meat in his hand. He could distinguish at a distance of ten yards the difference between it and bread. His chief delight was game, such as rabbit or hare, and though he ordinarily went home to the rocks about four, if he got the remains of the above, he would stay till dark expecting more. He rarely allowed other gulls to sit near him, but in the spring- time he always had a mate, and at the back end of the year there would be two silly-looking young ones who kept him on
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