He who approaches them during the day is soon surrounded by these screamers, whose whirling thousand-tongued multitudes stun his senses; and these birds, at other times so shy, flutter so close over his head, as often to touch him with their wings. On Nowaja Semlja's ice-bound coast, on the peaks of isolated cliffs, and suffering no other bird in his vicinity, dwells the fierce imperious Burgomaster (_Larus glaucus_). None of its class dares dispute the authority of the lordly bird, when with unhesitating superiority it descends on its prey, though in the possession of another. Although not numerous, yet it is the general attendant on the whale-fisher whenever spoils are to be obtained. Then it hovers over the scene of action, and having marked out its morsel, descends upon it and carries it off on the wing. On its descent, the most dainty pieces must be relinquished, though in the grasp of fulmar, snow-bird, or kittiwake. The larger parasitical or raptorial gulls (_Lestris parasiticus, catarrhactes_), are incapable of diving or plunging, their feathers being too large in proportion to their bulk. They are therefore obliged to live by the exertions of the lesser species, making them disgorge what they have eaten, and dexterously catching the rejected fish before it reaches the water. Thus we see the old feudal relations of baron and serf established as a natural institution among the gull-tribe. [Illustration: Broad-billed Petrel.] Although the sea-swallows and sea-mews are endowed with great power of wing, yet the petrels and albatrosses alone deserve the name of oceanic birds, as they are almost always found on the high seas, at every distance from land, and only during breeding-time seek the solitary coasts and islands. Petrels are scattered over the whole extent of the ocean, but the petrels which inhabit the northern seas are different from those of the antarctic ocean, and between both are other species, that never forsake the intertropical waters. [Illustration: Fork-tailed Petrel.]