270 LARIDiE. 



the cliaracter of the terns. When one is killed, or wounded, all 

 within view of the poor victim fly instantly towards it, and bewail 

 its fate in the most piteous terms. The quickness with which 

 they perceive its fall is surprising. They dart down until almost 

 touching it, and, observing that it cannot rise, keep circling over 

 it with the greatest vociferation ; in this act the three species 

 join, making common cause, no matter which kind is victim. 

 This amiable trait, as already mentioned of the gannet, at Ailsa, 

 is sometimes taken advantage of at the Mew Island, for the 

 destruction of the terns, and dead birds are thrown into the air 

 to lure within shot the survivors, otherwise keeping out of range. 

 A habit which Audubon remarked of the arctic tern, met with 

 by him at several of its breeding-haunts on the coast of North 

 America, is equally applicable to the common and roseate species, 

 and probably to others : — that, " whenever one was wounded so 

 slightly as to be able to make off, it was lost to us, and the rest 

 followed it" (vol. iii. p. 3G8). 



I have somewhere read that the lower animals are altogether 

 devoid of that generous feeling for their neighbours in distress, 

 which characterizes the amiable of our own species, and Mr. Jesse, 

 in his popular ' Gleanings in Natural History,' states that in his 

 opinion, friendship for each other is peculiar to the rook. But 

 in addition to the terns and gannet, the redshank may be named. 

 The gulls, too, exhibit the same feeling, and if one falls, all the 

 species — the whole tribe of gidls — enact a similar part to that 

 narrated of the terns, call it affection or what we will : cnriosiiy 

 at all events it cannot be on the part of the terns at the Mew 

 Island, where they unfortunately have too frequent experience 

 in being fired at for that to be the cause. Audubon (vol. iii. 

 p. 107) mentions a similar trait displayed by the puffin, which 

 will be found noted at p. 234 of the present volume. With 

 respect to the deer, however, Shakespeare did not avail himself of 

 the poet's license, but was strictly correct in attributing to that 

 animal a character of the opposite nature, in his lines upon the 

 wounded stag ; — 



" Anou, a careless herd, 

 Full of the pasture, jumps along by hiiu. 



