LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN GULLS AND TERNS. 129 



elongated dusky markings on the crown and a necklace of dusky 

 spots on the hind neck, which are lost at the partial prenuptial 

 molt before the next breeding season. The bright chrome yellow 

 of the upper mandible and the vermilion of the lower mandible are 

 characteristic of the breeding season. Subsequent seasonal molts 

 of the adult are merely repetitions of the complete postnuptial in 

 the summer and the partial prenuptial molt in early spring, involv- 

 ing only the head and neck. 



Food. — The feeding habits of the California gull make it one of 

 the most useful of birds to the agriculturist of the western plains, 

 where it makes its summer home. Rev. vS. H. Goodwin (1904) says 

 of its habits in Utah : 



I have watched them for hours as they circled about the newly plowed 

 field, or followed close behind the plowman, as blackbirds do in some localities, 

 or sunned themselves on the ridges of the furrows after a hearty meal of 

 worms. I have studied them as they fared up and down the river in search of 

 dead fish and other garbage, or assembled in countless numbers in some retired, 

 quiet slough where they rent the air with their harsh, discordant cries and 

 demoniac laughter, or sailed on graceful wing in rising circles till lost in the 

 deep blue of heaven. 



Mr. Dutcher (1905) publishes the following interesting letter from 

 Mr. John E. Cox, of the Utah Board of Agriculture : 



Gulls go all over the State for insects, the greatest number visiting the beet 

 fields, where they keep down the crickets, grasshoppers, cutworms, etc. They 

 took a new diet this summer. Some alfalfa fields were so badly honeycombed 

 with mice holes and runs that it was impossible to irrigate them, and they 

 were plowed up, mostly for beet culture. When the water was turned into 

 the irrigation ditches the mice were forced out of their holes, and the gulls 

 then caught them. They became so perfect in their work that they kept 

 abreast of the head of the water and picked up every mouse that appeared. 

 When gorged with victims they would vomit them up in piles on the ditch 

 bank and recommence their feeding. Gulls are sacred in Utah, and are so 

 tame that oftentimes they may be caught by hand as they follow the plow so 

 closely. 



Dr. A. K. Fisher (1893) reports that a specimen of this species, 

 shot at Owens Lake, California, "on December 28, had its craw full 

 of duck meat and feathers, and from the actions of its associates 

 when a duck was shot it was evident that they prey upon such game, 

 since the lake affords little other food." During the two seasons that 

 I spent in Saskatchewan we saw the California and ring-billed gulls 

 almost daily visiting the garbage heaps on the outskirts of Maple 

 Creek, Avhere they found a good supply of food to vary their natural 

 diet of insects and other animal food picked up on the prairies and 

 about the lakes. During their winter sojourn on the Pacific coast 

 they follow the example of others of their kind and become largely 

 scavengers about the harbors. They also, prol)ably, feed on fish to 

 some extent. 



