TASMANIA 155 



hour insects that do not live inland, so conservative 

 birds in their cupboard love of the coast identify 

 themselves as part of it. 



Some birds come to the coast to winter, others 

 to summer. Many Honey-eaters live their w^hole 

 life by it. Field Wrens (Calamanthus) are very 

 dependable as dwellers in the salt bush. 



The Silver Gull is web-footed, and a frequenter 

 of the beach, coming close to the settlement. The 

 Pacific Gull, a large brown bird when young and 

 mostly snow white when adult is the largest sca- 

 venger of the sands. Far away from the cities and 

 from the haunts of man, the Red-bills or Oyster- 

 Catchers take up their solitary stands on the open 

 beaches. These birds are only partly web-footed, 

 the outer toe being joined to the middle one by a 

 web. There is no hind toe to support it. 



The ocean cares for the pelagic birds, and they 

 come in to the dunes or the rocks when the season 

 arrives for nesting. 



The family that thinly veils the vast ocean is 

 made up of birds with special noses, definite tubes 

 as nostrils. In it is included all the albatrosses, 

 whale-birds and small petrels. Their food is prin- 

 cipally squids or cephalopods; the ocean teeming 

 with them. 



