THE GREAT GREY GULL. 297 



Description Several varieties. 



sunk, or drawn towards the shoulders, as one 

 would almost imagine they had not any neck at all* 



The upper side of the back and neck, are grey, 

 intermixed with a whitish brown ; the back fea- 

 thers black in the middle, and ash-coloured to- 

 wards the edges, the wing feathers are of a dark 

 brown, intermixed with black ; the throat, breast, 

 belly, and thighs, white; the rump is of the 

 same colour, with a few brown spots interspersed. 

 The tail is five or six inches long, the outmost 

 tip of the feathers, on the upper side, are joined 

 by a sort of black cross bars, near two inches 

 broad ; the under part also varied with a few 

 dusky-coloured lines. The legs and feet are yel- 

 low-orange coloured, and the claws black. 



There are about twenty varieties of this tribe 

 which are all distinguished by an angular knob 

 on the chap. This bird is well known. " It is," 

 says an ingenious modern, " seen with a slow- 

 sailing flight hovering over rivers to prey upon 

 the smaller kinds of fish ; it is seen following the 

 ploughman in fallow fields to pick up insects; 

 and when living animal food does not offer, it 

 has even been known to eat carrion, and what- 

 ever else of the kind that it finds. Gulls are 

 found in great plenty in every place; but it is 

 chiefly round our rockiest shores that they are 

 seen in the greatest abundance; it is there that 

 the gull breeds and brings up its young; it is 

 there that millions of them are heard screaming 

 with discordant notes for months together. 



VOL. iv. NO. 29. 2 P 



