Jones — On Birds of Cedar Point. 69 



are gathered in the vicinity of the cities, or in the regions where 

 fishing througli the ice is practiced extensively. Apparently there 

 is always some open water in Sandusky Bay and the marshes, and 

 here I have seen the birds, to the number of fifty, lined up along the 

 the linear openings in the ice which mark a line of decaying swamp 

 vegetation. The gulls appear to spend the night on the ice in the 

 vicinity of such feeding places. After a hard winter there is pretty 

 clearly a northward migration, during which individuals visit the 

 Oberlin Water Works reservoir. 



1(1. Lartis (Jehnrai-eiisis. — King-billed Gull. 



The presence of this gull all along the lake front has been sus- 

 pected, but it has not been until the more recent intensive studies at 

 Cedar Point that positive proof of its regular occurrence has been 

 obtained. It is clearly much less common than the Herring Gull. 

 None have been observed in winter, and none during June and July. 



11. Lams phihtdclpliia. — Bonaparte's Gull. 



This is a regular migrant, but is far more numerous during the 

 southward movement than at other times. None have been recorded 

 in July, and almost none in June and August. The migratory move- 

 ment appears to occur along the river courses and few fiy over the re- 

 gions between. Thus at Oberlin, which lies between the two river 

 courses, only a few scattered individuals are seen, while at Cleveland, 

 and especially at Sandusky, many hundreds pass. In my experience 

 this gull is far more numerous on both sides of Cedar Point sand spit 

 than elsewhere along the lake, and the times of maximum num- 

 bers occur between Noveml>er 1 and December 30. During the last 

 three winters I have found a flock of from 50 to 500 birds ranging 

 along the shores of the sand spit as long as there remained open 

 water, which was well into January. They act much like terns, div- 

 ing headlong into the water for fish, but can always be readily dis- 

 tinguished from them by the almost sparrow-like conversational 

 notes instead of the harsh icr-r-r of the terns. They seem to pre- 

 fer the vicinity of the lake beach to the marshes for feeding grounds, 

 possibly because small fish are more numerous there. On the occa- 

 sions when the pent-up swamp waters at Rye Beach have broken 

 thi'ough into the lake carrying all sorts of debris upon their floods, 

 these gulls have collected at the place in great numbers, feeding. 



The northward migration begins from the first to the middle of 

 April, and all have passed north by the first of June. A few individ- 

 uals return by the first of September, but the flood does not appear 

 before the first of November. Professor E. L. Moseley states that 

 over 2,000 of these birds were feeding in the waters and marshes 

 east of Sandusky on November 12, 1904. 



