It will be observed that in this notice the name “Kafir” is spelt with one _f_; this being the proper orthography, as the word is the Arabic “Kafir,” an unbeliever, this being exemplified in the name “Kafiristan,” the land of infidels. THE SILVER GULL (_Larus argentatus_) In its adult plumage, with the snow-white head, neck, and under-parts, the delicate French grey back and wings, and the white-spotted black tips to the larger flight-feathers, the silver gull, or herring-gull, as it is more commonly called, is one of the most beautiful members of a lovely tribe of birds. Indeed, whether swimming calmly on the surface of the sea, or skimming over the crests of the waves borne on their long and powerful pinions, and every now and then plunging into the water to seize a fish or some floating morsel of food, gulls in general are some of the most elegant and graceful of all birds, their delicate colouring, in which grey and white, relieved to a greater or less extent by black or chocolate, generally predominate, thus giving a refinement to their whole appearance which is wanting in many birds of brilliant plumage. Were it not that their cries, their tempers, and their habits are by no means angelic, gulls might well have been selected as emblems of the angels. The white and pale grey plumage, replaced in a few species by a wholly white or cream-coloured livery, is, however, developed only in the adults; birds of the year having the back and wings thickly mottled with brown and dark grey, and the tail black, while the head and neck are wholly brown; the beak, moreover, in the species forming the subject of the Plate, being black instead of orange. From this we learn that gulls are descended from birds with relatively dark plumage, which may perhaps have been dwellers on the land; and if this be so, these beautiful birds evidently acquired their present type of colouring only when they took to a life on the ocean wave. In any case, the pale livery of the adult gull must be regarded as a special adaptation to its mode of life; such a garb being the one which harmonises best with the foam-flecked waves of the waste of waters. The herring-gull closely resembles in colouring the common gull (_Larus canus_), and like that species is abundant on the British coasts, or, for that matter, on the Thames at London Bridge or the ornamental water in St. James’s Park in winter. It is, however, a much larger bird, attaining a length of about 22 inches in the case of adult males.