us to stay at home." "Why so?" we quietly inquired. "Well, sir," was the response, "I never knew a gull act in that sort of way but it meant bad luck in fishing, and the non-accomplishment of one's errand afloat, whatever it might be." The rest agreed with the speaker, but we persuaded them, after some trouble, to proceed to their fishing-ground, to give it a trial at least; and when, at a much later hour, they returned, we were on the beach to meet them, and found that after all they had made an excellent fishing. There and then we sat down beside them as they were dividing their fish into equal shares, and told them the following story from Josephus, Against Apion. Quoting from Hecatæus, the great Jewish historian proceeds:--"As I was myself going to the Red Sea, there followed us a man, whose name was Mosollam; he was one of the Jewish horsemen who conducted us. He was a person of great courage, of a strong body, and by all allowed to be the most skilful archer that was either among the Greeks or barbarians. Now, this man, as people were in great numbers passing along the road, and a certain augur was observing an augury by a bird, and requiring them all to stand still, inquired what they staid for. Hereupon the augur showed him the bird from whence he told his augury, and told him that if the bird staid where he was, they ought all to stand still; but that if he got up and flew onward, they must go forward; but that if he flew backward, they must retire again. Mosollam made no reply, but drew his bow and shot at the bird, and hit him and killed him; and as the augur and some others were very angry, and wished imprecations upon him, he answered them thus:--'Why are you so mad as to take this most unhappy bird into your hands? for how can this bird give us any true information concerning our march, which could not foresee how to save himself? For had he been able to foreknow what was future, he would not have come to this place, but would have been afraid lest Mosollam the Jew would shoot him as he has done, and kill him.'" The men, who had listened most attentively, smiled as we concluded, and agreed that Mosollam must have been a very sensible man; and vowed that for the future they would attach no more meaning or importance to a circling, screaming gull, than to the chirping of a wren in the elder bushes at the cottage doors. And what after all, the reader may ask, brought the black-backed gull circling and screaming over your heads? Well, from its great and immense spread of wing, it was probably the leader and guardian of its own particular flock, and as such thought it his duty to reconnoitre in person, in case the five men about the boat on the beach should have sinister intentions as to him or his. His scream or guileag was just his way of telegraphing the results of his observations to his distant companions; or he may have been scolding us in his own manner for our manifest intention