398 
THE GULL. 
sun, — the parent bird only sitting upon them during the 
night, — it would be worth an observer’s while to look after 
our Terns, and see how far they resemble their American 
connexions. 
They are very tame ; and we have approached one of our 
British species ( Sterno kirundo), as it rested on a patch of 
mud, a boat’s buoy, or a piece of floating wood, till we might 
have almost knocked it down with a stick. They appear, 
indeed, to have little or no sense of danger : if three or four 
are in company, and one is shot, the others will usually, 
instead of hurrying away, come fluttering down to the dead 
body, uttering their soft, mournful, or, as in this case it 
might be termed, reproachful cry. Their whole appearance 
is, in truth, so beautiful and attractive, that we can readily 
enter into the feeling with which one of these birds was 
regarded by a forlorn, starving boat’s crew, whose vessel, 
striking on an ice-island, on her passage from Halifax, in 
North America, to England, foundered, and left her miserable 
inmates on the wide ocean, hourly expecting to be swallowed 
up by the heavy seas, which were constantly breaking over 
the crowded boats. It was on the evening of the sixth day 
after quitting the wreck, 1 * just before night set in, that a 
beautiful white bird, “ web-footed, and not unlike a Dove in 
size and plumage, hovered over the mast-head of the cutter ; 
and, notwithstanding the pitching of the boat, frequently 
attempted to perch on it, and continued fluttering there till 
dark. Trifling as this circumstance may appear,” continues 
the writer of the narrative, “ it was considered by us all as 
a propitious omen. The impressive manner in which it left 
us, and returned to gladden us with its presence, awakened 
in us a superstition, to which sailors are at all times said to 
be prone. We indulged ourselves, on this occasion, with 
the most consolatory assurances that the same hand which 
had provided this solace to our distresses, would extricate us 
from the dangers that surrounded us.” 
We come next to the numerous class of Gulls, — a class 
* Narrative of the loss of the Lady Hobart packet. 
