Further along the shore a group of gray and white herring gulls stand into the wind. Hiding in a clump of peat-rooted grasses a few hundred feet from them is a gull in its first year. One of its wings is broken, with the primary feathers dragging on the ground. The bird stalks slowly along, tripping a little, isolated, a picture of shame and loss. When I approach, it moves reluctantly toward the other gulls, then stands into the wind slightly behind and to the side of them. Suddenly the flock takes to the air, and the young gull stays down, crippled, unable to forage for its food, and ultimately doomed. There are various kinds of mutual assistance in nature. Some species, like Canada geese, may help, or try to help a fallen mate; but there are no hospitals. I am told that a sick bee rolls out of a hive if it can, or is pushed out by the others. Animals must be deeply aware of death, and they die alone, perhaps with an instinctive understanding that they have to pay the price of a health which nature ultimately requires. The landscape slopes on and out from life to life, swept by the air, an earth, sand, water, run of interchanging light. Clouds of white terns are hovering and diving over the waters of the bay. Suddenly a dark-plumaged marsh hawk flies into the midst of them. They harry it in the blue, heat-clouded sky. The hawk circles, dodges, flaps on, while they dive on it continually. It twists and rises higher and higher trying to shake them off, until it plummets down and flies low over the surface of the water, making a great round turn back to the shore. The crippled gull stands and waits with hurt patience. The hawk flies back to the marsh behind the beach and begins to beat slowly over it, covering the ground methodically, hunting the unwary shrew, mouse, or sparrow. The terns dive for fish. The tide waters begin to slip in over the sand. Measure for measure. Necessity keeps its component parts in order, as the light changes, and the south wind keeps blowing. * * * * * Down the shore to the east is an inlet called Paine’s Creek, which receives the inland migration of alewives in the spring, and takes out their young, hatched in early spring and summer, as they swim to salt water. The alewife fry, two or three inches long, attract gulls and terns. During the month there has been a migratory colony of terns in the vicinity, principally common terns, both adult and immature.