434 NATATORES. 



cated. &quot;They are caught by baiting a hook with pork or blubber, 

 and fastening a piece of wood near the bait, so that it may be 

 kept floating, and letting it tow astern. Superstitious sailors 

 sometimes ascribe the high winds and bad weather to their having 

 killed an Albatross.&quot; 



FIFTH FAMILY. GULLS. 

 Larida, (Gr. Ao^oj, laros, a mew or gull.) .. 



These web-footed and well known sea-birds, are numerously 

 dispersed over every quarter of the world, and, in some parts, are 

 met with at certain seasons, in prodigious multitudes. They 

 assemble together in rather promiscuous arid straggling flocks, 

 and greatly enliven the beach and rocky cliffs, by their irregular 

 movements, while their shrill cries are often deadened by the 

 noise of the waves, or nearly drowned in the roaring of the surge. 

 Occasionally, taking a wide range over the ocean, they are seen 

 by navigators many leagues distant from the land. They are all 

 greedy and gluttonous, devouring, almost indiscriminately, what 

 ever comes in their way, whether of fresh or putrid substances, 

 until they are obliged to disgorge the contents of theMr overloaded 

 stomachs; still, they can endure protracted .hunger. The large 

 kind of Gulls are most common in the cold climates of the North, 

 where they breed and raise their young, feeding chiefly upon the 

 remains of dead whales, which they find floating on the sea, 

 among the ice, or driven on shore by the winds and waves. 

 The True or Typical Gulls, (Larus ) are much more decidedly 

 land birds than any other of the order. Those of the sub-genus 

 Xema or Laughing Gulls, in particular, roam much inland ; feed 

 on insects and worms ; build among herbage in low nests near 

 the sea; lay eggs of an olive color, marked with large brown 

 spots; and undergo seasonable changes of plumage; all of 

 which may be said of the Plovers. To the Wading Birds, the 

 Plovers especially, the Gulls, (Larus,) approach in their general 

 form, in attitude, in the long and slender tarsus, with the hind 

 toe small and set high up, (as in the Lapwing, Vanellus,) in the 

 naked space above the heel, and even in the form of the beak, 

 straight, slender, and swelling towards the tip and also in the 

 internal structure. 



We quote from Swainson some remarks, pointing out clearly 

 the differences in the three sections into which the Gulls have 

 been arranged, viz: FORK-TAILED GULLS, ( Rynchops ;) the 

 THREE-TOED GULLS, (Larus,) and the FOUR-TOED GULLS, 

 (Leslris.) 



