Gulls 



one summer, break open the shells to extract the moUusks, by 

 carrying them up in the air, then dropping them on the rocks. 

 "We saw one that had met with a very hard mussel," he 

 writes, ' ' take it up three times in succession before it succeeded in 

 breaking it ; and 1 was much pleased to see the bird let it fall 

 each succeeding time from a greater height than before." 



Again, one may see a flock of herring gulls "bedded" on 

 the water floating about to rest. All manner of boats pass close 

 beside such a tired company in New York harbor without dis- 

 turbing it; for these gulls, unlike the glaucous and black-backed 

 species, show little fear of man or his inventions. 



But it is high in air, sailing on motionless wings in the wake 

 of an ocean steamer, that one mentally pictures the herring gull. 

 Apparently the loose flock, floating idly about, have no thought 

 beyond the pure sport. Suddenly one bird drops like a shot 

 to the water's surface, spatters about with much wing-flap- 

 ping and struggle of feet, then, rising again with a small fish or 

 morsel of refuse in its grasp, leads off from a greedy horde of 

 envious companions in hot pursuit that likely as not will over- 

 haul him and rob him of his dinner. Dining abundantly and 

 often, rather than flying about for idle pleasure, is the gull's real 

 business of life. 



With all their exquisite poetry of motion, it must be owned 

 that these birds have also numerous prosaic qualities, exercised 

 in their capacity of scavengers. Rapacious feeders, tyrannical 

 to smaller birds that they can rob of their prey, and possessed of 

 insatiable appetites for any food, whether fresh or putrid, that 

 comes in their reach, the gulls alternately fascinate by their grace 

 and animation in the marine picture, and repel by the coarseness 

 of their instincts. However, it is churlish to find fault with the 

 scavengers that help so largely in keeping our beaches free from 

 putrifying rubbish. Doubtless the birds themselves, as their 

 name implies, would prefer herrings were they always available. 



Unlike the other gulls, this one, where it has been persist- 

 ently robbed, sometimes nests in trees, and, adapting its archi- 

 tecture to the exigencies of the situation, constructs a compactly 

 built and bulky home, often fifty feet from the ground, and 

 preferably in a fir or other evergreen. Ordinarily a coarse, loose 

 mat of moss, grasses, and seaweed is laid directly on the ground 

 or on a rocky cliff near the sea. Two or three grayish olive 



40 



