384 BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 



Family LARID5I. 



The Gulls are birds of the sea-shores rather than of the 

 open ocean ; they are of a wandering disposition, and wing 

 their way up and down the beach in search of stranded mol- 

 lusks and garbage ; they also frequent oozy sand-flats where 

 they obtain salt-water worms, &c. The family comprises 

 numerous species, which have been divided into many genera 

 in accordance with the differences in their structure, mode of 

 life, and nidification. They have an elegant carriage, and 

 swim well ; but their dense and soft plumage is unsuited to 

 immersion, and consequently they seldom seek their food 

 beneath the surface. At the breeding-season they are strictly 

 gregarious ; some construct their nests on rocks, while others 

 assemble in vast multitudes and resort for this purpose to 

 rivers and inland waters. Usually the sexes are alike in 

 colour, but the whole of them are subject to seasonal changes 

 of plumage ; some of the genera, as the black-headed Gulls 

 are remarkable in this respect, for their heads are black 

 during summer only. 



Genus LARUS, Linnaus. 



. The members of this genus are distributed over the sea- 

 shores of every part of the globe. Only one species inhabits 

 Australia, to which country it is confined, and where it repre- 

 sents the Lams marinus of Em'ope and America. 



With reference to the species of this form, Macgillivray 

 remarks, " They have a strong, buoyant flight, performed by 

 slow beats of their long, extended, arched wings, walk and run 

 with short steps, emit a loud, clear, or harsh cry, and a suc- 

 cession of short sounds resembling a laugh. They perform a 

 singular action with their feet upon the sands, patting them 

 repeatedly with considerable celerity, and at the same time 

 retiring backwards. Their food consists of fish, flesh pf dead 



