266 THE BIRDS ABOUT Us. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



GULLS AND TERNS. 



IT is safe to say that whoever has seen a sea-coast 

 has seen a sea-gull ; and many a person who has 

 spent all his days in an inland town may be likewise 

 familiar with these birds, for they wander at times 

 very far from the ocean, and are a feature of many a 

 river valley almost as much as of the borders of the 

 restless ocean. And whoever has seen has also 

 heard the sea-gull, and will never forget the doleful 

 creaking sound, so like that made by a rusty-hinged 

 sign-board on a windy day. They are, whether sea- 

 ward or inland, restless as swallows, but more de- 

 liberate in their flight and far less dainty in their 

 habits. The floating carcass is as valued a morsel as 

 the liveliest fish that swims. 



The term " Gull" as commonly used includes a 

 large number of birds, which the ornithologist tells 

 us are not true gulls, but Skuas, Jaegers, and Kitti- 

 wakes. These differ anatomically, of course, from each 

 other and the gulls proper, though in a general way, 

 both in appearances and habits, they are essentially 

 one ; but the birds mentioned as not true gulls do 

 not come inland to the same extent. We see a hun- 

 dred gulls probably to one of the skuas or jaegers. 

 These birds get the latter name, which means 

 " hunter," from the fact that they are in a certain 



