398 THE GULL. 



sun, the parent bird only sitting upon them during the 

 night, it would be worth an observer's while to look after 

 our Terns, and see how far they resemble their American 

 connexions. 



They are very tame ; and we have approached one of our 

 British species (Sterno hirundo) as it rested on a patch of 

 mud, a boat's buoy, or a piece of floating wood, till we might 

 have almost knocked it down with a stick. They appear, 

 indeed, to have little or no sense of danger : if three or four 

 are in company, and one is shot, the others will usually, 

 instead of hurrying away, come fluttering down to the dead 

 body, uttering their soft, mournful, or, as in this case it 

 might be termed, reproachful cry. Their whole appearance 

 is, in truth, so beautiful and attractive, that we can readily 

 enter into the feeling with which one of these birds was 

 regarded by a forlorn, starving boat's crew, whose vessel, 

 striking on an ice-island, on her passage from Halifax, in 

 North America, to England, foundered, and left her miserable 

 inmates on the wide ocean, hourly expecting to be swallowed 

 up by the heavy seas which were constantly breaking over 

 the crowded boats. It was on the evening of the sixth day 

 after quitting the wreck,* just before night set in, that a 

 beautiful white bird, '* web-footed, and not unlike a Dove in 

 size and plumage, hovered over the mast-head of the cutter ; 

 and, notwithstanding the pitching of the boat, frequently 

 attempted to perch on. it, and continued fluttering there till 

 dark. Trifling as this circumstance may 'appear," continues 

 the writer of the narrative, " it was considered by us all as 

 a propitious omen. The impressive manner in which it left 

 us, and returned to gladden us with its presence, awakened 

 in us a superstition, to which sailors are at all times said to 

 be prone. We indulged ourselves, on this occasion, with 

 the most consolatory assurances that the same hand which 

 had provided this solace to our distresses would extricate us 

 from the dangers that surrounded us." 



We come next to the numerous class of Gulls, a class 



* Narrative of the loss of the Lady Edbart packet. 



