GLEANERS OF THE SEA. 



gallant ship, that has survived the fury of many storms, is brought at last to 

 its death upon the stretches of a sandy coast. The fierce waves have 

 found many a crevice in her worn sides, and with resistless power have 

 torn the planks from her frame, and strewn them along the shore. The cargo, 

 floating through the yawning chasms, is borne along by the waters, and the fairy 

 gulls are attracted towards it. Lightly they skim above detached morsels of the 

 eatable portion of the ship's stores, or settling down upon the waters near some 

 particularly tempting piece, with shrill cries dispute for its possession, and en- 

 deavour 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. 



Amid all the winged tribes that find their homes upon the bosom of the 

 ocean, and seek their subsistence amid the tossing crests of its waves, none are 

 more attractive and beautiful, with their graceful forms and pure white dress, than 

 the active, lively gulls, our Gleaners of the 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 expanse of ocean, teeming as it is with unnumbered inhabitants of 

 beautiful and curious form, were there no feathered creatures to sport over its waves, 

 and to gambol upon its surface. 



