The Nature Library

Home › Volumes › Game Birds

Gulls and Terns

Order Long-winged Swimmers

Bills of moderate length, the upper mandible not swollen at the tip like the jaegers, but curved over the end of the lower mandible. Wings long, broad, strong and pointed, though their flight is less graceful than a tern's. Tail feathers usually of about equal length. Sexes alike, but the plumage, in which white, brown, black, and pearl-blue predominate, varies greatly with age and season. In flight the bill points forward, not downward like a tern's. Gulls pick their food from the surface of the sea or shore, whereas terns plunge for theirs. Gulls are the better swimmers, and pass the greater part of their lives at sea, coming to shore chiefly to nest in large colonies.