252 ON THE DIFFERENT SPECIES OF 
to be of much immediate importance. Their flesh is tough, 
generally lean, and disagreeable in taste and flavour : the 
young and the smaller species, however, are eaten occasion- 
ally in the outer Hebrides, and probably in other countries. 
Their plumage, if it could be procured in sufficient quan- 
tity, is much superior to that of most other aquatic birds, 
for the ordinary purposes to which feathers are a])plied. 
Affinities. — However the Gulls may be placed in the sys- 
tems of ornithologists, their true position in the system of 
Nature is evidently between the Petrels or Albatrosses and 
Terns. There is a striking aflinity, on the one hand, be- 
tween the Diomedea eoculans^ or Procella7'ia glacialis^ and 
the Larus marinus, or argenteus ; and, on the other, be- 
tween the Lar^us Sahini and mmutus, and the Sterna hi- 
rundo and minuta. The four genera, in fact, form a very 
natural family, closely allied in aspect and in manners. 
The genus Lestris, which is by many considered as identi- 
cal with the present, and by others as at least most closely 
allied to it, I would net even place within several degrees 
of aflinity. 
It has been customary to divide the species of this genus 
into large and small, giving the former the na,me of Goe- 
lands, and the latter that of Mouettes, terms which have 
their equivalents in the Enghsh words Gulls and Mews. 
This division, altogether arbitrary, and having no founda- 
tion in nature, I would reject. Perhaps a better mode of 
division might be derived from the prevailing colour of the 
mantle or back, — or, which would be more eligible, from 
the form of the tail, which is even, or furcate, or cuneate. 
In the latter case, however, the second and third divisions 
would contain but a single species each. It is better to 
consider the whole as one undivided genus, commencing 
with the short and deep-billed species, such as bathi/- 
