USEFUL BIRDS 



THE HERRING GULL AND COMMON TERN. 



175 



The gull family is a group beneficial to farmers living in a ])rai- 

 rie country. 



The Black Tern, found so abundantly about our prairie sloughs, 

 and perhaps the most abundant representative of the group in 

 Minnesota, is a good friend of the farmer, for when the sloughs 

 are dry, and e\'en before, they consume large numbers of grass- 

 hojipers. Amongst others of this family (gulls), Franklin's Rosy 

 Gull is one of the chief breeders within the State's borders and is 

 a voracious eater of grasshoppers, and, while no ilkistration of this 

 bird is available, we are ])leased to be able to present an excellent 

 drawdng of the Common Tern in this publication which will serve 

 to illustrate the group- 



The Herring Gull — a good scavenger upon the shore of lake 

 or ocean, typifies the larger members of the family and the species 

 itself, wdiile not as abundant perhaps as other gulls which breed in 

 some of our lakes — is, nevertheless, a Minnesota summer resident, 

 arriving in the sotithern part of the state early in April, shortly 

 after that working its way north, where some at least nest in our 

 larger lakes, notal)lv Lake Mille Lacs. I have observed them at 

 Devils Lake, Otter Tail County, in October and also find the fol- 

 lowing observations amongst my notes taken some years ago : 

 "At Lake Mille Lacs, after the wind has been blowing from the 

 East a day or more, these gulls and the two following species, 

 namely, L. dclczi^'arcnsis and L. Philadelphia, are plenty along the 

 west shore, flying up and down the beach and occasionally alight- 

 ing to pick up small lacustrine mollusks washed ashore with the 



