Page:The Common Birds of Bombay.djvu/208

192 There is a fashion in dress among birds as among their betters, and with Gulls and Terns the fashion is to wear a grey cloak, or mantle, over a suit of immaculate white. There are a few eccentric species, but as a rule almost the only difference between one and another is in the tint of the mantle. One will be a pale, French grey, while another is dark slaty. The tips of the wings and the end of the tail may be black, and in summer the correct thing is a sable cap, or a silky black topknot. Add to this that the young birds differ considerably in these same points from those that are advanced in age, and you will see that it is no easy matter for a man who has not made a special study of the subject to distinguish the different species of Gulls that may be seen about the Bombay harbour. He certainly will not do it with the aid of any description that I can give. But any one may learn the difference between a Gull and a Tern. Terns are smaller birds, with much longer and more pointed wings and deeply forked tails. These differences are accounted trivial by the anatomist, but they have the advantage of being obvious to the unlearned; and, as far as my own observation goes, they indicate a difference which ought not to be overlooked between the habits of the two groups of birds. Terns are fishers, which catch their slippery prey by dropping head-foremost into the water, often disappearing entirely for a second or two. When the bird emerges it is holding a wriggling little fish cross-wise in its sharp beak, in which position the fish cannot possibly go down its throat; so, giving a pretty little shrug of its shoulders to shake off the water, it rises ten or twenty feet-and then tosses the fish into the air and catches