US 
NATURAL HISTORY 
the size of a goose, and on that account called the giant 
petrel. The upper parts of its plumage are pale brown, 
mottled with dusky white; the under parts are white. 
The Gull, and ull its varieties, is well known to most 
readers. It is seen with slow-sailing flight hovering over 
rivers, to prey upon the smaller kinds of fish ; it is seen 
following tlie ploughman in fallow fields to pick up insects; 
and when living animal food is not to be found, it has even 
been known to eat carrion, and whatever else offers of the 
kind. 
Of the gull there are about nineteen species. The largest 
with which we are acquainted is the black backed gull , so 
called, because the upper part of the back and wings are 
black, the rest of the body being a perfect white. It weighs 
near five pounds, is twenty-nine inches in length, and in the 
extent of its wings five feet nine inches. It is common in 
England, and in all the north of Europe. In America it is 
called the old wife. 
The skua gull is the size of a raven. The upper parts 
of the head, neck, back, and wings are deep brown ; the 
under parts a pale rusty ash colour. The legs are black, 
rough, and warty, and the talons very strong and hooked. 
It is mostly a native of the North, though often found in 
England. It is a most formidable bird, as it not only preys 
upon fish, but upon all the smaller water-fowl, and even on 
young lambs. It has the fierceness of the eagle in defend- 
ing its young ; and when the inhabitants of the Farro isles 
attack its nest, they hold a knife over their heads, on which 
the skua will transfix itself in its fall on the invaders. Ob 
the rocky island of Foula, one of the Shetland isles, it is a 
privileged bird, as it is said to defend the flocks from the 
eagle, which it pursues and beats off with great fury when- 
ever he presumes to visit the island. 
The wage! gull has its whole pin mage composed of a mixeu 
brown ash colour and white. It weighs about three pounds. 
The herring gull resembles the black-backed in every thing 
but size, and that the plumage on the back and wings is more 
inclined to ash-colour than black ; it weighs thirty ounces. 
The glacous gull, which inhabits Norway, &c. is rather 
larger than the herring gull, but resembles it in most other 
respects ; the silvery gull is the same size as the herrinu’ 
gull, and not much different in plumage and manners. ° 
1 he tarrack, and the kiltiwake gulls also so nearly resemble 
each other, that some authors affirm the latter to be only the 
tarrack in a state of perfection. The head, neck, belly, and 
tail of the kittiwake are of a snowy whiteness, the back and 
