CHAPTER XII 



BIRDS OF THE OCEAN 



PURE white prevails in the costumes of the long-winged birds that habit- 

 ually range the open sea, and their patterns are further characterized by 

 an almost total lack of small markings. In coloration as in environment, 

 they are the antithesis of the sedentary and seclusive land birds which live 

 mainly on grassy ground or in the mottled realms of woodland — such as the 

 ptarmigans, grouse, goatsuckers, etc., described in earlier chapters. The 

 Shore Birds (Chapter X) are a connecting link between the two extremes. 

 As their average environment is much more plain and simple than that of the 

 grouse or ptarmigan, so are their obliterative patterns much less richly and 

 elaborately wrought. The step is short from these birds of the barren bor- 

 derland between earth and sea, to the long-winged rangers of the blank and 

 hoary sea itself. Here are no sharp and fixed small forms at all, but only the 

 eternal counterplay of two vast and simple fluent elements, atmosphere and 

 water. True, even in open ocean there are characteristic patterns made by 

 the moving waves and ripples, and these are reproduced on some of the ma- 

 rine animals, notably certain surface-swimming fishes. (See Chapter XXIV.) 

 But the coloration of the long-winged, wide-ranging sea birds copies the prev- 

 alent blankness of sea and sky and cloud. Though often resting on the sur- 

 face of the water, they are of course less intimately bound down to it than the 

 ducks, auks, murres, etc., being in fact eminently aerial rather than natatorial; 

 and this is in accordance with their wanting the wave and ripple pictures 

 worn by many ducks and murres. Chief among these long-winged sea birds 

 for delicate beauty of 'oceanic' coloration are the LaridcB, or gulls and terns. 



72 



