656 



AVES — GULL. 



when living animal food is not to be found, it has even been known to eat 

 carrion, and whatever else offers of the kind. 



Of the gull there are about nineteen species. The largest with which we 

 are acquainted is, the black and white or black-backed gull. 1 It generally 

 weighs upwards of four pounds, and is twenty-five or twenty-six inches from 

 the point of the bill to the end of the tail; and from the tip of each wing, 

 when extended, five feet and several inches. The bill appears compressed 

 sideways, being more than three inches long, and hooked towards the end. 

 like the rest of this kind, of a sort of orange color; the nostrils are of an 

 oblong form ; the mouth is wide, with a long tongue, and very open gullet. 



rfcip^ 



The irides of the eyes are of a delightful red. The wings and the middle of 

 the back are black ; only the tips of the covert and quill feathers are white. 

 The head, breast, tail, and other parts of the body, are likewise white. The 

 tail is near six inches long, the legs and feet are flesh-colored, and the claws 

 black. There are about twenty varieties of this tribe, which are all dis- 

 tinguished by an angular knob on the chap. 



Gulls are found in great plenty in every place ; but it is chiefly round the 

 rockiest shores, that they are seen in the greatest abundance; it is there that 

 the gull breeds and brings up its young; it is there that millions of them are 

 heard screaming with discordant notes for months together. 



1 Lotus marinua, Lin. 



