140 THE STORY- OF “THE BIRDS: 
therefore, on the upper prong of his bill. He isa con- 
necting link in feeding habits between the geese with 
long legs, the swans with long necks, and the waders 
which have both, but omit the bill fringes. 
Now, lying near all these short-winged divers, and 
also stretching out on one edge toward the plovers 
and on another toward the storklike waders, 1s a group 
of divers that fly well. The gull forms, which are 
most ploverlike, feed much awing by picking up 
from the water’s surface floating things. They swim 
on the surface, rarely diving deep. Some of them 
pursue other birds that have prey, rob the fish out of 
the pouch of the pelican and are freebooters generally. 
In many respects they have the spirit. of the birds 
of prey. They dart also upon fish from above, and 
one plows the water in flight with a knifelike beak in 
hopes of running through a shoal of fishes. 
In them flight has found a high development. 
Occasionally terns feed over the land, darting grace- 
fully down, seizing a worm, ete., tossing it into the 
air and catching it again—all without alighting. The 
petrel forms feed similarly, diving slightly, and are 
the most exclusively midocean haunters of all birds. 
Some of the Pelican-cormorant group feed by div- 
ing from the air on to fish beneath the surface, as 
gannets, and others by pursuing the fish beneath the 
surface, as the cormorants. They are wonderfully 
cushioned with air spaces beneath the skin to resist 
shock in striking the water, and most of them have a 
sack below the bill to store fish in or to act as a scoop 
or net in surface fishing. 
