398 NATATORES. 



be far from rare in the northern isles ; though from the 

 causes that have been already mentioned, it has not been 

 much attended to. On the North Sea it appears to range 

 as far as that sea is open, having been met with in Davis 1 

 Straits, and even in Baffin's Bay. Its tern-like character 

 gives it much more command of the sea than the larger gulls 

 have, as it probably feeds much more on the small animals 

 that float in the currents than on fish, for the capture of 

 which, in their young state, the large gulls keep nearer to 

 the shores. 



THE LITTLE GULL (LdTUS 



The little gull is less of a sea bird than even the laughing 

 gull. It is a native of the lakes, rivers, and marshes of the 

 eastern parts of Europe, and appears in Britain only as an 

 occasional straggler. It is only ten inches in length, but 

 two feet or more in the stretch of the wings. In the mature 

 bird, the head and part of the back are black ; the rest of 

 the upper part greyish ash, and the under part white. 

 Not much is known of it even in its native haunts ; but 

 judging from the very few specimens that have straggled 

 to England, one would conclude that it is subject to the 

 same changes of plumage in its progress to maturity, and 

 also to seasonal changes resembling those of the kitty-wake ; 

 but it is so little connected with British Ornithology, that 

 it is not much worthy the attention of the merely popular 

 observer. 



There seems a climatal arrangement of the gulls, from the 

 ivory gull in the extreme north, to the black-headed and 

 the little ones in the middle latitudes; and there seems 

 also to be a disposition in them to range over the ocean, 

 from the kitty-wake perhaps, which is one of the longest 

 winged of birds in proportion to its size, and appears to 

 winter on the seas, to the same inland species that have 



