﻿1848. BIRDS. 201 



in tlie season, before the ground is (leniicled of snow, 

 and seeks its food in the first pools of water which 

 form on the borders of Great Bear Lake, and 

 wherein it finds multitudes of minute crustacean 

 animals and larvae of insects. It flies in flocks, 

 and builds its nests in a colony resembling a rookery, 

 seven or eight on a tree ; the nests being framed 

 of sticks, laid flatly. Its voice and mode of flying 

 are like those of a tern ; and, like that bird, it rushes 

 fiercely at the head of any one who intrudes on its 

 haunts, screaming loudly. It has, moreover, the 

 strange practice, considering the form of its feet, of 

 perching on posts and trees ; and it may be often 

 seen standing gracefully on a summit of a small 

 spruce fir. 



The insectivorous habits of this bird, and its 

 gentle, familiar manners, contrast strongly with the 

 predaceous pursuits and voraciousness of the short- 

 billed gull {^Lariis hracliyrhynchus of the Fauna 

 Boreali- Americana) . If a goose was wounded by 

 our sportsmen, these powerful gulls directly as- 

 sailed it, and soon totally devoured it, with the 

 exception of the larger bones. In the spring of 



1849, when Mr. Bell and I were encamped at the 

 head of Bear Lake River, waiting for the disruption 

 of the ice, the gulls robbed us of many geese, 

 leaving nothing but well-picked skeletons. Mr. Bell, 

 who was the chief sportsman on this occasion, and 

 spent the day in traversing the half-thawed marshes 



