THE TERNS, SKIMMERS, AND GULLS 2285 



blackish with white tips, the back blackish, and the legs bright yellow. This spe- 

 cies is resident in Britain, and ranges eastward to the Caspian, while southward it 

 extends into Africa, and westward to the Canaries. Of the great black-backed 

 gull (/,. marinus}, which is larger than all the preceding, a well-known observer, 

 who writes under the nom de plume of "A Son of the Marshes," says that these 

 birds "are not particular as to the nature of their food, so long as there is enough 

 of it; a rat or a bird, a fish or a snail, or bread and milk, will suit almost 

 equally well. Tradition says that in the early days of our oldest inhabitants the 

 great black-backed gull bred on some of the wild flats of the Kentish coast, and in 

 a portion of the lonely salt marshes of Essex." In attacking young lambs, these 

 gulls invariably commence by pecking out the eyes of their victims; and as many 

 as nine of these marauders have been captured during a single evening by setting a 

 number of traps around a dead lamb. In length this gull measures upward of 

 twenty-eight inches; and in the adult breeding plumage the head is white, the back 

 blackish, and the legs flesh color, the number of flight feathers being thirty-four. 

 Essentially an oceanic species, the greater black-backed gull is mainly an inhabitant 

 of both sides of the North Atlantic, although it has been procured on the Pacific 

 side of North America, and in winter it ranges as far south as the Canaries. In the 

 Southern Hemisphere it is replaced by the southern black-backed gull (Z,. domini- 

 canus}, characterized by its stout beak, brownish black- mantle, and olive-colored 

 legs. Largest of all the British species, the glaucous gull (L. glaucus), in which 

 the males may measure fully thirty-two inches, is readily distinguished by the adult 

 summer plumage being nearly white throughout, as well as by the comparative 

 shortness of the wings and feet. Essentially an Old-World Arctic bird, this gull 

 only wanders in winter to temperate and tropical Europe; while in the North Pacific 

 it is represented by the allied L. glaucescens, ranging from America to Kamchatka, 

 and distinguished by the faint gray mottlings on the wings. Another occasional 

 wanderer to the British Isles from the north is the Iceland gull (L. leucopterus} , 

 which may be distinguished from the last by its length not exceeding twenty-two 

 inches, and likewise by the proportionately much longer wings and legs. Bona- 

 parte's gull (L. Philadelphia}, a small species with a grayish -black head and upper 

 neck, is remarkable for its habit of breeding in tall trees. 



Represented only by the common circumpolar kittiwake (Rissa 

 tridactyla) and an allied North-Pacific species (R. brevirostris} from 

 the region lying between Alaska and Kamchatka, these gulls are distinguished by 

 the shortness of the metatarsus and the absence or rudimentary condition of the 

 first or hind-toe. It is not a little curious that while in most districts examples of 

 the common kittiwake in which the latter toe persists are but rarely met with, in 

 Behring Sea this condition is much more common. Measuring fifteen inches in 

 length, the kittiwake, in the summer plumage of the adult, has the upper parts 

 white and gray, the tail white, the first to the fifth primaries tipped with black, 

 the under parts white, the beak yellow, and the legs brownish black. The kitti- 

 wake is a resident in the British Isles, where it breeds in numbers on rocky 

 cliffs, and feeds chiefly on surface-swimming fry of fishes and marine invertebrates. 

 The nests, which are usually placed close together on narrow ledges of rock, are 



