On either side of the gulls, and closely associated with them in habits and in structure, is a group of birds equally characteristic of the open coast, the skuas and terns. The skuas, darker and more courageous birds, are familiar to those who spend their August holiday sea-fishing near the Land's End, where, particularly on days when the east wind brings the gannets and porpoises close inshore, the great skua may be seen at its favourite game of swooping on the gulls and making them disgorge or drop their launce or pilchard, which the bird usually retrieves before it reaches the water. This act of piracy has earned for the skua its West Country sobriquet of "Jack Harry," and against so fierce an onslaught even the largest gull, though actually of heavier build than its tyrant, has no chance and seldom indeed seems to offer the feeblest resistance. These skuas rob their neighbours in every latitude; and even in the Antarctic one kind, closely related to our own, makes havoc among the penguins, an episode described by the late Dr. Wilson, one of the heroes of the ill-fated Scott expedition. Far more pleasing to the eye are the graceful little terns, or "sea-swallows," fairylike creatures with red legs and bill, long pointed wings and deeply forked tail, which skim the surface of the sea or hawk over the shallows of trout streams in search of dragonflies or small fish. It is not a very rare experience for the trout-fisherman to hook a swallow which may happen to dash by at the moment of casting; but a much more unusual occurrence was that of a tern, on a well-known pool of the Spey, actually mistaking a salmon-fly for a small fish and swooping on it, only to get firmly hooked by the bill. Fortunately for the too venturesome tern the fisherman was a lover of birds, and he managed with some difficulty to reel it in gently, after which it was released none the worse for its mistake. SEPTEMBER BIRDS IN THE CORN BIRDS IN THE CORN