corks. They can leave the water easily, and take to flight; but they
_cannot_ dive. The Gull's dinner-table is the whole coast. His eyes are
keen enough, as you will know if you have watched him swoop down on a
piece of bread in mid-air, and catch it neatly in his beak.

The flight of this Gull is beautiful, graceful, and easy. Sometimes he
wheels up and up into the blue sky, almost without moving a wing. He can
also glide for a great while, balancing his body against the wind, and
turning his head from side to side on the look-out for food. Those long,
pointed wings of his make him one of Nature's most perfect
flying-machines. His wild, laughing cry has given him the nickname of
Laughing Gull.

In the fields and along the banks of our big rivers you may see the
Common Gull with numbers of his black-headed cousins. His beak and legs
and webbed feet are greenish yellow, and this is quite enough to
distinguish the two birds. Their habits are much the same. Both skim
over the sea, or the coast, looking for waste food. They are not very
"choice" in their meals; dead fish or live fish, young crabs, worms,
shell-fish or grubs they eat readily, as well as any offal thrown from
passing ships, or the refuse of the fish-market.

One of these scavenging birds was seen to be carrying a long object,
like an eel, in its mouth. The bird was shot; and it was then discovered
that the "eel" was really a string of candles! The greedy Gull had
half-swallowed one, leaving the rest to hang down from its bill. The
Common Gull nests in "colonies," like the Black-headed Gull. Its nest is
made of seaweed, heather, and dried grass, in which it lays its three
greenish-brown eggs.