"It is about a sea-gull," he said. "You know about them, of course, for you have been at the sea. This was a little, young sea-gull. It had not long learnt to fly, and sea-gulls need to fly very well, for often they have to go many miles without a rest when they are out at sea, unless there happens to be a ship passing or a rock standing up above the water, or even a bunch of seaweed floating--that might do for a young bird that is not very heavy. There was very stormy weather the year this sea-gull and his brothers and sisters were hatched, and sometimes the father and mother sea-gulls were quite frightened to let them try to fly, for fear they should be beaten down by the storm winds and not have strength to rise again. It is quite different, you see, from little land-birds learning to fly. They can just flutter a little way from one twig to another near the ground, so that if they do fall they can't be much hurt. Sea-gulls need to have brave hearts even when they are quite little. This sea-gull was very brave, almost too brave. He loved the sea so dearly that while he was still a nestling, peeping out from his home, high up on a ledge of rock, at the dancing, flashing waves down below, he longed to be among them. He felt as if he almost would go mad with joy if only his mother would let him dash off with her, whirling and curving about in the air, with nothing below but the great ocean. And he would scarcely believe her and his father when they told him that it wasn't so easy to fly as it looked--not at the beginning, and that birds had to learn by degrees. At last one day the father, who had been out sniffing about, came in and told the mother it would be a good day for a beginning. So all the four young ones got ready, and stood at the edge of the nest in great excitement. I think it must have been very funny to see them at first--they were so awkward and clumsy. But they didn't hurt themselves--for the old birds kept them at first among the rocks where they couldn't fall far. And our sea-gull wasn't quite so sure of himself the next day, nor quite so impatient to go on flying, and I daresay he got on better when he had become less conceited. When they could fly a little better the father and mother took them to a little bay, where there was nice soft sand, and where the wind blew gently, and there they got on very well. And there they should have been content to stay till the spring storms were over and their wings had grown stronger. They all were quite content except the one I am telling you of." "What was his name?" asked Fergus. "He hasn't got one," Gratian replied, "but we can make him one. I daresay it would be better." "Call him White-wings," said Fergus.