Birds and Birding's Guide to:

Watching THE PLOVER-LIKE BIRDS

THE GULLS AND THEIR ALLIES

(Suborder Lari)

Without going extensively into the historical side of the question, beyond the statement that the Gulls and their immediate relatives were formerly — and by some the Auks are still — placed in the same group with the Petrels, it seems now generally acknowledged that they are most closely related to the shore-birds (Limicolce), with which they essentially agree in the arrangement of the feather pattern, as was long ago pointed out by Nitzsch, as well as in nearly every essential detail of their anatomy.

They are for the most part large or medium-sized birds of aquatic habits, with long, usually pointed wings in which there are eleven primaries, the terminal one being very short and inconspicuous, while the three front toes are webbed and the hind toe (sometimes absent) is small, raised above the level of the others and not united with them. As regards the details of the skeleton it may be mentioned that the nostrils are slit-like (schizorhinal), the palate split (schizognathous), and the basipterygoid processes absent, in which feature they differ from the typical Limicolce, while they agree in having fifteen cervical vertebrae and a U-shaped furcula.

In another suggestive manner the resemblance between the Plovers and the members of the present group is shown in the nidification, as they generally make no nest or only a slight one of grass, and the one to four eggs are double-spotted, resembling the eggs of Plovers so closely that a considerable percentage of the eggs sold in Europe as”Plover's eggs,”it is said, are laid by Terns. The young when hatched are covered with down, which, however, is of a more complex nature than that clothing the young Plovers, and, although they seem able to run about, they are fed by the parents in or near the nest for some time.

The present suborder as here accepted embraces two families, or as they might perhaps better be called, superfamilies,— the Laridce, or Gulls, Terns, Skimmers, and Skuas, in which the sternum is provided with four notches, and the Alcidce, or the Auks and their kin, which have a two-notched sternum.

Following Mr. Blanford, the Laridce are considered to include four families or subfamilies,— the LarincB, or Gulls, the Stemince, or Terns, the Rhynchopince, or Skimmers, and the StercorariincB, or Skuas and Jaegers. The first three are distinguished by the fact that the bill is without a cere and the claws but moderately curved, not being shaped or fitted especially for grasping, while the caeca or blind intestines are rudimentary. In the Skuas and Jaegers, however, the bill is provided with a cere for nearly half its length, and the feet are armed with strong, much-curved, and very sharp claws, which, as will be shown later, fit them for a rapacious existence; their caeca are long and well developed.

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