When morning broke, Silver Wing and his mate found themselves upon the bank of a great river. Here were plenty of other gulls, but of a strange, new tribe. The river was bordered with mud flats, which at low tide formed splendid feeding grounds. Crayfish, and shoals of small, shining fish abounded. But, to tell the truth, neither the old gull nor his mate were very happy or contented with the river bank. They had known only the wild life of their lonely ocean island and missed the booming breakers along the cliffs, the companionship of the sea bird colonies, the terns, the gannets, and the little roving petrels. Besides, this new, almost tame tribe of gulls was vastly different in other respects. Silver Wing and his mate felt they could never mix with these small, brownish plumaged birds who fought and wrangled among themselves, who were content to brood for hours in the black mud of the river flats. More than once during their stay Silver Wing had really to thrash one of these bold, foolhardy brown gulls for presuming to pay attention to his own mate, and at last he came to hate the very spot, becoming wildly jealous of every brown gull who crossed him in any way. He and his mate determined to go off and seek a new home, for it was almost nesting time again, and Silver Wing realised the importance of settling as soon as possible. So, one day he gave the starting signal, and after hovering triumphantly overhead above the gormandising brown tribe upon the mud flats beneath them, screaming back a loud, lonely challenge, off they flew. For many days they flew along the shores of the sound, now skimming low to dip their grey wings in the blue waves, flirting the spray high in silvery showers, or feeding along the beaches for little tender mussels or soft-shell clams, and playing tag with the funny little sandpipers who ran across the sands, and scattering them just for fun. At last they reached a desolate, rocky strip of coast, and after much flying about they finally settled upon a convenient cliff beneath which stretched a long line of sandy beach, while out beyond tumbled their dear, familiar breakers. Down below the cliff were jagged, brown rocks, over which trailed long, emerald green and brown sea kelp, where the water came in and out with the tides, leaving in the shallow places shoals of little fish, sea anemones, and starfish. Through these the gulls would pick their way daintily, with their pink, webbed feet, searching out the barnacles which clung to the rocks, pecking at tiny, sheltering shells where lurked sweet morsels to be had for the cracking.