232 



THE OPAL SEA 



Gray color- 

 ing of sea 

 birds. 



Terns. 



Gulls and 

 their flight. 



gulls, terns and frigate birds are white or black 

 or mixed; but the shearwaters, cape pigeons 

 and petrels are gray-hued, sooty or blackish 

 gray. Few, indeed, of the true sea birds have 

 bright colors. The rose-hued tern is about the 

 gayest of them all ; and even he prefers to do his 

 fishing in sight of the land, though by instinct 

 and equipment he belongs to the sea. All the 

 tern family are graceful birds in flight, dart- 

 ing, skimming, twisting in a way that has 

 brought them the colloquial name of " sea- 

 swallows." In color the majority of them are 

 gray on the back and white on the breast. They 

 have a red foot, a sharp red bill, and a forked 

 tail which rather marks them apart from the 

 gulls, though in reality they are closely allied 

 to the gull family. The shore with its schools 

 of small fish is their hunting ground though 

 sometimes a piece of wreck far out at sea or a 

 scrap of drifting wood will have a group of 

 them occupying it. 



The gulls like the terns usually have white 

 feathering below with gray backs; but the dif- 

 ferent species vary the monotony with whites 

 and blacks. By virtue of long pointed wings 

 they are extremely graceful in darting, plung- 

 ing, and twisting, if somewhat heavy and awk- 

 ward in straight-away flying. They are, how- 



