GULLS AND TERNS. 269 
height, they all move off, with one consent, in a direct line towards 
the point of their destination. 
«This bird breeds in the marshes.” 
As in so many other instances, these birds are by 
no means as numerous now as when Ord wrote, more 
than sixty years ago, yet the bird is still here, but 
probably has altogether abandoned the great majority 
of its breeding-grounds in New Jersey and north- 
ward. Chamberlain says it has been driven away 
from Nantucket. 
The Herring Gull of our coast—the Middle States 
—and of our harbors and rivers is well known to all. 
It follows up the Delaware to above Trenton, New 
Jersey, and Dr. Warren reports it on the Susque- 
hanna, below Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and “is a rather 
common spring and fall migrant on Lake Erie.” 
Where, as along the sea-shore, there is ever so 
much to see, a single gull or even a flock of many 
birds attracts little attention. They pass up and down 
the coast, following the schools of fish or watching 
for such flotage as comes within their extended bill 
of fare. We glanée at their glistening plumage, ad- 
mire their graceful flight, and when they are out of 
sight they are straightway forgotten. But it is not 
so with the single gulls upon the river: they are 
too prominent here to be passed by unheeded. It 
occasionally happens that we have a storm that 
drives the gulls inland (and such storms drive people 
in-doors too much), and the river that was monot- 
onous yesterday is almost tumultuous to-day. The 
wind-tossed waves, the cloud-flecked sky, the roar of 
gusty blasts in the leafless trees, the wild clamor of 
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