Gull
GULL
GULL (Heb. ??????; av "cuckow," jps "sea-mew"), bird mentioned in the Bible as prohibited as food (Lev. 11:16; Deut. 14:15), the Hebrew name means "thin" or "swift of movement" and, on the basis of its rendering as ????? in the Septuagint, refers to the gull. Eight species of the genus Larus are found in Israel. Feeding on sea fish and scraps of food, they follow ships for the offal thrown overboard. The gull also penetrates to inland regions of the country (even to the Negev) where it lives on worms and snails. To the family of the gull (Laridae) belong the Sterna, a genus of which two species are found in Israel, distinguished from the gull by being web-footed along the entire length of their toes.
bibliography:
J. Feliks, Animal World of the Bible (1962), 86; M. Dor, Leksikon Zo'ologi (1965), 330f.
[Jehuda Feliks]
