24 WATER-BIRDS IN THEIR HOMES. 



quoddy Bay, on the eastern coast of Maine, is usually called by 

 the people living coastwise. The sun shiuint,^ on them lights 

 every bird, so that even when two miles away you can see them 

 filling the air like a snowstorm, rising, falling, hovering, set- 

 tling, a cloud of white flakes. There may be ten thousand, 

 or there may be a hundred thousand of them, but the mind 

 does not grasp the number, and any estimate is a guess. 

 Nearer to the flock, instead of a cloud of silent white flakes, 

 we discover a busy, screaming tangle of birds, each intent on 

 looking out for himself. All is excitement, and their enormous 

 appetites make them able to find fun in their fishing long after 

 it would seem they must be gorged with food. 



The gentle little Bonaparte's gull loves to sit and rest on 

 the water for long intervals ; the kittiwake will often float 

 and eat what is floating beside him; but the herring gull, 

 when in large flocks, is nervous and fierce, and rarely rests 

 long, but takes its prey while on the wing, patting the water 

 with its feet, arching its neck down to the water level while 

 its uplifted wings hold it steady above the waves. Unlike 

 the terns the gulls do not dive. While there usually are ex- 

 ceptions to all rules, it is almost certain that an uninjured 

 herring gull never dives. 



If you were to ask what brings these great numbers of 

 gulls together, and I were to tell you that the tides do 

 it, the answer, though correct, would seem frivolous. The 

 tides of Eastport are the highest of any place upon the sea- 

 coast of the United States — twice as high as those of Bos- 

 ton, five times those of New York, and seven times those of 

 San Francisco. 



In filling and emptying this great bay twice a day through 

 narrow channels, tremendous whirlpools and currents are 

 formed, and immense quantities of fish are borne back and 



