266 THE Birps Asout Us. 
CHAPTER XIV. 
GULLS AND TERNS. 
T is safe to say that whoever has seen a sea-coast 
has seen a sea-gull; and many a person who has 
spent all his days in an inland town may be likewise 
familiar with these birds, for they wander at times 
very far from the ocean, and are a feature of many a 
river valley almost as much as of the borders of the 
restless ocean. And whoever has seen has also 
heard the sea-gull, and will never forget the doleful 
creaking sound, so like that made by a rusty-hinged 
sign-board on a windy day. They are, whether sea- 
ward or inland, restless as swallows, but more de- 
liberate in their flight and far less dainty in their 
habits. The floating carcass is as valued a morsel as 
the liveliest fish that swims. 
The term “Gull” as commonly used includes a 
large number of birds, which the ornithologist tells 
us are not true gulls, but Skuas, Jaegers, and Kitti- 
wakes. These differ anatomically, of course, from each 
other and the gulls proper, though in a general way, 
both in appearances and habits, they are essentially 
one; but the birds mentioned as not true gulls do 
not come inland to the same extent. We see a hun- 
dred gulls probably to one of the skuas or jaegers. 
These birds get the latter name, which means 
“hunter,” from the fact that they are in a certain 
