THE SEA-GULL. 



A GALLANT ship that has survived the 

 fury of many storms is brought at last to 

 its death upon the stretches of a sandy coast. 

 Tlie fierce waves have found many a crevice in 

 its worn sides, and with resistless power have torn 

 the planks from its frame and strewn them along 

 the shore. The cargo, floating through the yawn- 

 ing chasms, is borne along by the waters, and the 

 fairy Gulls are attracted toward it. 



Liglitly they skim above detached morsels of the 

 eatable portion of the sliip's stores, or settling 

 down upon the waters near some particularly 

 tempting piece, with slirill cries dispute for its 

 possession, and endeavor to bear it away in their 

 ivory bills. They swarm about the wreck in 

 countless numbers, and lighten, with their silvery 

 dress, the dark background of the clouds. 



Amidst all the winged tribes that find their 

 homes upon the bosom of the ocean, and seek 

 their subsistence amidst tlie tossing crests of its 

 waves, none are more attractive and beautiful, 

 witli their graceful forms and pure white dress, 

 than the active, lively Gulls, or Gleaners of tlie 

 Sea. Coming at times in flocks, with every kind of 

 erratic movement, more like the fleecy snow-flakes 



borne by the wintry wind than creatures endued 

 with life, they flit over their billowy home, or 

 cover in silent ranks the bleak wastes of its sandy 

 bounds. Lonely indeed would be the wide ex- 

 panse of ocean, teeming as it is with unnumbered 

 inliabitants of beautiful and curious form, were 

 there no feathered creatures to sport over its 

 waves, and to gambol on its surface. 



As we look upon their structure, so adapted to 

 the life they are destined to live, so wonderfully 

 fitted to the spliere they are formed to fill, how 

 limitless appear the resources of Creative Power, 

 which, having bestowed upon the land its count- 

 less forms of beauty, brings to the deep its own 

 creatures made to dwell amidst the mighty waves, 

 or to sport over their ever-changing surface ! Of 

 all shapes and sizes — from the Great Black- 

 backed Gull that moves among his bretliren of 

 the air like a feathery monarch, exacting tribute 

 from every newly discovered feast, to the delicate 

 little beings no larger than the Swallow — these 

 long-winged sprites are met with upon every 

 shore that bounds old Ocean's waves. 



In tropical lands they remain all the year 

 round ; but they depart from the more northern 



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