THE GULLS AND TERNS. 



There is a fashion in dress among birds as among 

 their betters, and with Gulls and Terns the fashion is 

 to wear a grey cloak, or mantle, over a suit of imma- 

 culate white. There are a few eccentric species, but 

 as a rule almost the only difference between one and 

 another is in the tint of the mantle. One will be a 

 pale, French grey, while another is dark slaty. The 

 tips of the wings and the end of the tail may be black, 

 and in summer the correct thing is a sable cap, or a 

 silky black topknot. Add to this that the young birds 

 differ considerably in these same points from those 

 that are advanced in age, and you will see that it is 

 no easy matter for a man who has not made a special 

 study of the subject to distinguish the different species 

 of Gulls that may be seen about the Bombay harbour. 

 He certainly will not do it with the aid of any descrip- 

 tion that I can give. But any one may learn the 

 difference between a Gull and a Tern. Terns are 

 smaller birds, with much longer and more pointed 

 wings and deeply forked tails. These differences are 

 accounted trivial by the anatomist, but they have the 

 advantage of being obvious to the unlearned ; and, as 

 far as my own observation goes, they indicate a differ- 

 ence which ought not to be overlooked between the 

 habits of the two groups of birds. Terns are fishers, 

 which catch their slippery prey by dropping head- 

 foremost into the water, often disappearing entirely 

 for a second or two. When the bird emerges it is 

 holding a wriggling little fish cross-wise in its sharp 

 beak, in which position the fish cannot possibly go 

 down its throat ; so, giving a pretty little shrug of its 

 shoulders to shake off the water, it rises ten or twenty 

 feet-and then tosses the fish into the air and catches 



