His First Flight 10th Class English 

Read the passage and answer the question.

The young seagull was alone on his  ledge. His two brothers  and his sister  had already  flown away the  day before. He had been  afraid to fly with them. Somehow  when he  had  taken  a  little  run forward  to the  brink  of the ledge and attempted  to flap his wings he became  afraid. The great expanse of sea stretched  down beneath,  and it  was such a long way down  - miles down. He felt certain that his wings would never support him;  so he bent  his head and ran away back to the little  hole under the ledge where he slept  at night. Even when each of his brothers and his little  sister, whose wings were far shorter than his own, ran to the brink, flapped their wings,  and flew away, he failed  to muster  up courage  to take  that  plunge  which  appeared  to him so desperate. His father and mother had come around calling  to  him  shrilly,  upbraiding  him,  threatening to  let  him  starve  on  his  ledge  unless  he  flew  away. But for the life  of him he could not move. That was  twenty-four hours  ago. Since then nobody had come near him. The day before, all day long, he had watched his parents flying  about with his brothers and sister, perfecting  them in the art of flight, teaching  them how to  skim  the waves and how  to dive for fish. He had, in fact, seen his older brother catch his first  herring  and  devour  it, standing on a rock, while  his parents circled  around raising a  proud  cackle.  And all  the  morning  the  whole  family had walked  about  on  the  big  plateau  midway  down  the opposite  cliff  taunting  him for his  cowardice. The  sun was now ascending  the  sky, blazing  on his ledge that faced  the south. He felt  the heat because he had not eaten since the previous nightfall. He stepped slowly out to the brink of the ledge, and standing on one leg with the other leg hidden  under his wing, he closed one eye,  then  the other, and  pretended  to  be  falling  asleep.  Still  they  took  no notice  of him. He saw his two brothers  and his sister lying  on the  plateau  dozing  with their  heads sunk into their necks. His father was  preening  the feathers on his white back.  Only  his mother  was looking at him. She was standing on a little  high  hump  on the plateau, her white breast thrust forward. Now and again,  she tore  at  a piece  of fish that  lay  at  her  feet and  then  scrapped  each side of  her beak on the rock. The  sight  of the  food maddened  him.  How he  loved to tear food that way, scrapping his beak now and again to  whet  it.