210 
BRITISH BIRDS. 
the ocean, and are met with by navigators many 
leagues diftant .from the land. Their plumage, 
which in each individual of the fpecies varies with 
its age,* is clean and agreeable, but their carriage 
and gait are ungraceful, and their character is ftig- 
matifed as cowardly, cruel, lazy, thievilh, and vo- 
racious ; for which reafon they have by fome been 
called the vulture of the fea: and it is certain 
pthough this trait is not peculiar to them'J that the 
ftronger will rob the weaker kinds, and that they 
are all greedy and gluttonous, almofl: indifcrimi- 
nately devouring whatever comes in their way, 
whether of frefh or putrid fub fiances, until they are 
obliged to difgorge their overloaded ftomachs. On 
the contrary, they are able to endure hunger a 
long while : Buffon mentions one that lived nine 
days without tailing food. 
Some ornithologifls divide this genus of birds 
into two kinds, calling the larger Gulls, and the 
leffer Mews, and clafs with the former kind thofe 
which meafure eighteen or twenty inches from the 
point of the bill to the end of the tail ; and with 
the latter all thofe which are of lefs dimenfions. 
The larger kinds are not fo common in the warm, 
as they are in the cold climates, where they remain 
to breed and rear their young, feeding chiefly upon 
Hence the confufion which has arifen among authors and 
nomenclators, refpeding this numerous tribe of birds. 
