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New Zealand Tablet, 6 February 1913, Page 41

There is perhaps no other kind of bird, of land or sea, so keen of sight as the common gull. To convince a sceptical friend of this, an American naturalist once made some interesting experiments. The two men were passengers on a steamer where the spring ebb aided them to run twenty miles an hour. A dozen gulls followed them in the steamer's wake, without apparent effort, and circled in graceful curves over the water. Breaking a cracker biscuit into four parts, ( less than an inch square each, the naturalist handed one piece to his friend, and told him to drop it into the seething waters on the starboard. Immediately the bit of biscuit became invisible to human eyes, and yet before it had gone thirty yards astern a gull'detected it, and, dipping into the foam, secured it. One by one it picked up the other bits of biscuit, though neither of the two men could see them.