THE HERRING GULL. 25 



forth with the tides. Incalculable numbers of little herring 



are swept along, and these are followed by the larger fish and 

 by the gulls that feed upon the herring. At times the water 

 boils with the rushes of great armies of young herring try- 

 ing to escape their enemies, while the pollock striking them 

 from below or leai)ing out of the water, until the sea seems 

 planted with fishes standing on their heads, and the screaming 

 gulls dipping from above to seize the little fish as the pollock 

 drive them up, make a scene not soon forgotten. 



Nor are the birds and fishes the only enemies the little 

 herring have to fear. Thousands of hogsheads of them are 

 taken in the nets of the fishermen and become sardines in oil 

 or sardines in mustard. The chief industry of the towns upon 

 Quoddy Bay is packing sardines. 



The gulls nest both inland and along the ocean shore. 

 While canoeing on the great lakes of Maine, I have found 

 their nests on the ledges far out from shore. The prettiest 

 were little rims of reindeer moss laid upon a bed of the same 

 dainty material, surrounding three dark eggs, larger than a 

 hen's eggs, blotched with darker brown. Along the seacoast 

 the nest is made of dried seaweed. It is the habit of gulls 

 to nest upon the ground, but when robbed and persecuted, 

 they both build and roost in trees. 



The herring gull is one of our wariest and most suspicious 

 birds, its only superior in these traits being the great black- 

 backed gull, which can scarcely be snared, trapped, shot, or 

 poisoned. So alert are the black-backed gulls that even the 

 wary black ducks, themselves among the shyest and most 

 cautious of birds, sometimes have a black-backed gull act as 

 sentinel for them, and warn them of danger while they sleep 

 or feed. 



When Pau-Puk-Keewis, in the story of Hiawatha, kills the 



