Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 11.djvu/288

274 later the district became the theatre for the important engagements which decided the event of the second Sikh war. After several bloody battles in which the British were unsuccessful, the Sikh power was irretrievably broken at the engagement which took place at Gujrat on the 22d of February 18£9. The Punjab lay at the feet of the con- querors, and passed by annexation under British rule.

1em

, the chief town and administrative headquarters of the above district, in 32° 31’ 30” N. lat. and 74° 7'15” E. long., with a population of 17,391, stands upon an ancient site, formerly occupied, according to tradition, by two successive cities, the second of which is supposed to have been destroyed in, the year of an early Mughal invasion of Delhi. Sher Shah turned his attention to the surrounding country, and either he or Akbar founded the existing town. Though standing in the midst of a Jat neighbourhood, the fort was first garrisoned by Gujars, and took the name of Gujrat Akbarabad. The town was rendered memorable during the second Sikh war by the battle which takes its name from this site, and which decided the fate of the campaign, bringing the whole Punjab at once under British rule. Akbar’s fort, largely improved by Gujar Sinh, stands in the centre of the town. The civil station lies to the north of the native city, and contains the court-house, treasury, jail, dispensary, police-lines, staging bungalow, and _ post-office. The trade of Gujrat is inconsiderable.  GULF STREAM. See.  GULL (Welsh, Gwylan; French, Goéland), the name commonly adopted, to the almost entire exclusion of the old English Mew (Icelandic, A/défur; Danish, Maage ; Swedish, Jase; German, Jfeve; Dutch, Afeeww; French, Mouette), for a group of Sea-birds widely and commonly known, all belonging to the genus Larus of Linnzeus, which subsequent systematists have broken up in a very arbitrary and often absurd fashion. The Family Laride is composed of two chief groups, Larine and Sternine—the Gulls and the Terns, though two other Subfamilies are frequently counted, the Skuas (Stercorartine), and that formed by the single genus Rhynchops, the Skimmers; but there seems no strong reason why the former should not be referred tu the Larine and the latter to the Sternine. Taking the Gulls in their restricted sense, Mr Howard Saunders, who has lately subjected the group to a rigorous revision (Proc. Zool. Society, 1878, pp. 155-211), admits forty-nine species of them, which he places in five genera instead of the many which some prior investigators had sought to establish. Of the genera recognized by him, Pagophila and Rhodostethia have but one species each, Rissa and Xema two, while the rest belong to Larus. The Pagophila is the so-called Ivory-Gull, P. eburnea, names which hardly do justice to the extreme whiteness of its plumage, to which its jet-black legs offer a strong contrast. The young, however, are spotted with black. An inhabit- ant of the most northern seas, examples, most commonly young birds of the year, find their way in winter to more temperate shores. Its breeding-place has seldom been dis- covered, and the first of its eggs ever seen by ornithologists was brought home by Sir L. M‘Clintock in 1853 from Cape Krabbe (Journ. BR. Dubl, Society, i. p. 60, pl. 1); others were subsequently obtained by Dr Malmgren in Spits- bergen. Of the species of Zzssa, one is the abundant and well-known Kittiwake, 2. tridactyla, of cireumpolar range, breeding, however, also in comparatively low latitudes, as on the coasts of Britain, and in winter frequenting southern waters. The other is £. brevirostris, limited to the North Pacific, between Alaska and Kamchatka. The singular fact requires to be noticed that in both these species the hind toe is generally deficient, but that examples of each are occasionally found in which this functionless member has not wholly disappeared. We have then the genus Larus, which ornithologists have hitherto attempted most unsuccessfully to subdivide. It contains the largest as well as the smallest of Gulls. In some species the adults assume a dark-coloured head every breeding-season, in others any trace of dark colour is the mark of immaturity. The larger species prey fiercely on other kinds of birds, while the smaller content themselves with a diet of insects and worms. But however diverse be the appearance, struc- ture, or habits of the extremities of the series of species, they are so closely connected by intermediate forms that it is hard to find a gap between them that would justify a generic division. Of the forty-three species of this genus recognized by Mr Saunders it would be impossible within the iimits of this article to attempt to point out the peculiarities. About fifteen belong to Europe and fourteen to North America, of which (excluding stragglers) some five only are common to both countries. Our knowledge of the geogra- phical distribution of several of them is still incomplete. Some have a very wide range, others very much the reverse, as witness L. fuliginosus, believed to be confined to the Galapagos, and JL. scopulinus and LZ. bullert to New Zealand,—the last indeed perhaps only to the South Island. The largest species of the group are the Glaucous and Greater Black-backed Gulls, Z. glaucus and L. marinus, of which the former is circumpolar, and the latter nearly so— not being hitherto found between Labrador and Japan. The smallest species is the European Z. minutus, though the North-American Z, philadelphia does not much exceed it in size. Many of the Gulls congregate in vast numbers to breed, whether on rocky cliffs of the sea-coast or on heathy islands in inland waters. Some of the settlements of the Black-headed or “ Peewit ” Gull, Z. vadibundus, are a source of no small profit to their proprietors,—the eggs, which are rightly accounted a great delicacy, being taken on an orderly system up to a certain day, and the birds care- fully protected. Ross’s or the Roseate Gull, Ahodostethie rosea, forms a well-marked genus, distinguished not so much by the pink tint of its plumage (for that is found in other species) but by its small Dove-like bill and wedge-shaped tail. It is an exceedingly scarce bird, little more than a dozen examples being known to exist in collections. Beyond its having an Arctic habitat, little has yet been ascertained about it. More rare still is one of the species of Xema, X, furcatum, of which only two specimens, both believed to have come from the Galapagos, have been seen. Its smaller congener Sabine’s Gull, .Y. sabinii, is more common, and has been found breeding both in Arctic America and