BRITISH BIRDS. 189 



plumage, which in each individual of the species 

 varies with its age,* is clean and agreeable, but 

 their carriage and gait are ungraceful, and their 

 character is stigmatized 'though somewhat un- 

 justly) as cowardly, cruel, lazy, thievish, and vora- 

 cious; for which reason they have by some been 

 called the vulture of the sea : and it is certain 

 ^though this trait is not peculiar to thenij that 

 the stronger will rob the weaker kinds, and that 

 they are all greedy and gluttonous, almost in- 

 discriminately devouring whatever comes in their 

 way, whether of fresh or putrid substances, until 

 they are obliged to disgorge their overloaded 

 stomachs. On the contrary, they are able to- 

 endure hunger a long while : Buffon mentions 

 one that lived nine days without tasting food. 



Ornithologists divide this genus into two kinds,, 

 calling the larger Gulls, and the lesser Mews,, 

 and class with the former kinds those which 

 measure eighteen or twenty inches from the point 

 of the bill to the end of the tail, and with the 

 latter all those which are of less dimensions. 

 The larger kinds are not so common in the warm 

 as in the cold climates, where they breed and rear 

 their young, feeding chiefly upon the rotting car- 

 cases of dead whales, &c., which they find floating 

 on the sea, among the ice, or driven on shore by 

 the winds and waves. It is now ascertained by 

 Captain Sabine, that they do not remain in the 

 dreary regions of ice and snow during the winter, 

 the extreme severity of which compels them all to 

 quit their native climes. 



* Hence the confusion which has arisen among authors and 

 nornenclators, respecting this numerous tribe of birds. 



