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CHAPTER II. 

 THE GULLS. 



" Away on the winds we plume our wings, 

 And soar, the freest of all fi-ee things ; 

 Oh ! the Sea Gull leads a merry life 

 In the glassy calm or tempest strife." 



Eliza Cook. 



fE. HOWAKD SAUNDERS, in his exhaustive article in the 'Proceedings of 



the Zoological Society,' 1878, Part I., enumerates forty-nine different species 



of Gulls, fifteen of which may be called British and three Australian. Though 



the Gulls are more birds of the sea-shore than the ocean, a ship would 



certainly be followed by various members of the family all down the Thames, 



the English Channel, and well into the Bay of Biscay ; also on the voyage the ship would 



be visited, when nearing land, by those Gulls peculiar to the locality; and lastly, the 



Australian Gulls would accompany the vessel from Cape Otway to its destination. 



In the following pages I have endeavoured to describe twenty-two different species that 

 we might thus fall in with on an Australian voyage. This includes all the Gulls of both 

 Great Britain and Australia. 



The individual variations in plumage of this subfamily are even more perplexing than 

 the Terns, as, besides the seasonal changes, they are a matter of three years in assuming 

 the complete adult dress.* This is a wonderful provision of Nature to enable them to gain 

 experience in the ways of the world (clad in a less conspicuous garb) before exposing 

 themselves to its dangers in a more marked and easier discerned plumage. But for a similar 

 thoughtful arrangement the Golden Pheasant must have long ago become extinct. The males 

 are considerably larger than the females, but alike in plumage. Some of the smaller Gulls 

 resemble the Terns in assuming a dark-coloured head during the breeding-season. They 

 assemble together in vast numbers for breeding purposes, nesting on the rocks ; or inland, 



* I suppose a Darwinian would say that this is the result of the gradual survival of only those birds 

 that postpone their adult plumage longest. 



T 



