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.
Another bird to be seen along all parts of our coast, summer and winter
alike, is the Cormorant, usually with a small party of his friends. They
fly swiftly, one behind the other, and a long line of them reminds one
of the pictures of "sea-serpents," especially as they fly quite near the
surface of the sea, each one with its long neck outstretched.
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