L. marinus, Gmcl. Lath. &c. Black Backed, Great Black and White, or Great Black Backed Gull. Swartz Back in Orkney, and Ssuabie in Shetland. Shoulders slate-black ; legs white ; length of the tarsus nearly three inches, the folded wings stretching a very little beyond the tail ; quill feathers black towards the end, but tipt with white. This is the largest species of the tribe, weighing nearly five pounds, and measuring about thirty inches in length. It is spread over the seas of Europe, Africa, America, and the southern hemisphere. Though not very plentiful on our coasts, it is occasionally seen, in severe weather, in small flocks of eight or ten, and sometimes in pairs, but never associating with the other gulls. It lives chiefly on fish, but also attacks the eider-duck. As raven ous as the vulture, it greedily fastens on garbage and car rion, drives off the smaller gulls from any fishes that may happen to be thrown ashore, and seizes the whole prey to itself ; but, if it miss its aim, it pounces on a piece of a dead horse or any offal that chance may bring within its reach. It has been known to tear and devour the largest fish on the hooks, when left dry by the ebbing tide. Its cry of kak, kok, kak, quickly repeated, is harsh and disso nant, and it utters another. both shrill and painful, when touched. Its great breeding stations are within the arctic circle, but it also propagates on Lunday Island, in the Bristol Channel, the female making her nest in the clefts of the highest rocks, and generally laying three or four olivaceous eggs, spotted with dark brown or purple, and reckoned eatable. Some of the young, when kept in con finement, have acquired a considerable degree of tameness, especially when copiously supplied with food, on which they fall with the greatest vehemence, devouring morsels little inferior to themselves in size, and retiring into a cor ner to digest it at leisure, when they will remain for a long time almost motionless, with their head buried in their plumage. The Esquimaux and Greenlanders not only eat the young, but make use of their fine down, and of the skins of the mature birds, in clothing.
L. argentatus, Gmel. Tern. Sab. L. glaucus, Lin. Silvery Gull, or Herring Gull of Latham's Synopsis. Mantle bluish•cinereous; legs livid ; length of the tarsus two inches and a half; wings very little exceeding the tail ; quill feathers black near the extremity, but tipt with white, and their shafts black. Its age and climate produce vari ous changes on the plumage, and the species may very readily be confounded with the glaucous. Capt. Sabine informs us that the principal difference consists in size, the males of the present species averaging twenty-four inches in length, and from four feet five to four feet six inches in extent of wing. The female is rather less. In its mature summer plumage it was observed abundantly in Davis' and Baffin's Straits. On the shores of Holland, France, England, &c. it occurs throughout the year, although it is most numerous in the months of October, November, and December ; and the young are accidental visitants of the Swiss lakes. These birds nestle in holes on the tops of
downs, or on naked rocks, according to local circurn ,,tances, and arc gregarious in the breeding season. The female lays two or three blunted eggs of a deep olivaceous, with some spots of black and cinereous, frequently light greenish or bluish, with brown and cinereous spots thinly scattered, and, more rarely, spotless. The live individuals in the Parisian menagerie were remarkable for their me lancholy and ignoble air, the small quantity of food which they consumed, their extreme leanness, and their total silence, their habits having been entirely changed by de priving them of the use of their wings. After feeding tne; would remain immovable, like so many stuffed specimens. Although the flesh of this species is tough and unsavoury, it is sold in the Parisian market during Lent.
L.fuRcus Lin. &c. Herring Gull. Mantle slate-black, legs yellow, length of the tarsus two inches and one or two lines, the wings stretching about two inches beyond the extremity of the tail, the bill proportionally shorter. and more slender than in the preceding Weight about thirty-three ounces, length twenty-three inches. Inhabits Europe, Asia, and North America, proceeding southward in winter as far as the Black and Caspian seas, Jamaica, and the snores of South Carolina. It lives on fish, espe cially herrings, which it seizes with great boldness, and the shoals of which it accompanies in flocks. It is also observed ta trample the soft sand, by moving its feet al ternately in the same place, for the purpose of bringing up worms. It is a very common species on the British shores, makes its large nest of dry herbage on the ledges of rocks, and lays three eggs, of a dull whitish, spotted with black. On the Black Craig, in the Orkneys, its nests are placed as thick as they can stand on the shelves. Fishermen describe the herring gull as the bold attendant on their nets, from which they find it difficult to drive it away.
L. e burn eus, Gmel. &c. lorry Gull. Body quite white, legs black ; a very small naked spot on the tibia ; length of the tarsus one inch five lines; average length of the body twenty inches ; weight twenty ounces. Inhabits the frozen seas of Greenland and Spitzbergen, and abounds in Baffin's Strait. It is likewise met with among the islands that lie between Asia and America, and on the west and. east coasts of North America. Nothing can exceed the beauty of the snow-white plumage of the mature bird, which is supposed to be perfected at the end of the se cond year. Numbers of these birds usually associate with Procellaria glacialis are attracted by whale blubber, and, being far from shy, are easily killed. According to Tem minck, they accidentally roam to the coasts of Holland, and to Switzerland. The nest, rudely composed of dry grass, is generally placed on the ground, and contains lour white eggs. The young are at first blackish, and afterwards spotted with that hue, chiefly on the back and wings. while the head and other parts are much mottled with brown.