168 NORTH AMERICAN FAUNA 61, FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE 



cargo to quicken its speed, or was it a peace offering, an early 

 manifestation of the adult reaction to jaegers' attack? Possibly 

 it is only a nervous reaction and may be common to the young 

 of several species, such as cormorants and pelicans, which 

 promptly spew up their food when disturbed. 



Food Habits 



The omnivorous habit of the glaucous-winged gull is well 

 known ; it is a glutton in the presence of an abundant food supply. 

 Wetmore (manuscript notes, 1911) wrote of the gulls near the 

 cannery at False Pass that — 



Everything is gobbled up greedily, and some of the birds can hardly rise in 

 the air when gorged. I have seen one of them choke down two full-sized 

 dog salmon heads entire, and stand gasping and choking for several min- 

 utes with an enormous lump in the throat. 



Gulls congregate in large numbers at the cannery docks to 

 feed on the refuse, and are accepted as welcome scavengers. For 

 the same purpose they follow the ships, and they gather to feed 

 on the carcasses of stranded whales or seals or on dead fish 

 thrown up by the tide. They found abundant food at the whaling 

 station at Akutan. On Alaska Peninsula and Unimak Island, 

 where Alaska brown bears feed on salmon, the gulls gather to pick 

 up the leavings. 



The natural food taken by the glaucous-winged gulls depends 

 on the environment. In 1925, at Izembek Bay and at St. Catherine 

 Cove on Unimak Island, I found these gulls feeding chiefly on 

 crabs. A small yellow-brown, hairy variety is very common in 

 these waters, and the gulls consistently hunt for it. On the 

 ocean beach, they stalk about at low tide and eat crabs. As the 

 tide ebbs, many crabs are left on the beach, covered with a layer 

 of sand so that they present only a slight lump on the smooth 

 beach surface, however the gulls are expert in finding them. In 

 Izembek Bay, parts of which run nearly dry at low tide, the 

 gulls find a good crab-hunting ground. Food remains on nesting 

 grounds of Glen Island and other points in the bay consisted 

 almost entirely of crab remains, and many empty carapaces were 

 strewn along the beaches, picked clean by the gulls. The smaller 

 crabs are swallowed whole. 



The gulls manage to find an occasional clam, and there also 

 is an occasional dead murre or codfish on the beach — additional 

 items in the gull's diet. 



On Amak and Bogoslof Islands, the glaucous-winged gull 

 specializes in murres' eggs and young. Nesting gull colonies 

 were situated at a convenient distance from murre cliffs, and the 



