Herring Gull 271 



well grown and strong of wing, the drake joins 

 the family, one flock joins another, and the 

 ducks begin their long journey southward. 

 But very few children, even in Canada, can ever 

 hope to know them in their inaccessible swampy 

 homes. 



HERRING GULL 



Called also: Winter Gull 



"Every child" who has crossed the ocean or 

 even a New York ferry in winter, knows the big, 

 pearly-gray and white gulls that come from north- 

 em nesting grounds in November, just before 

 the ice locks their larder, to spend the winter 

 about our open waterways. On the great 

 lakes and the larger rivers and harbotirs along 

 our coast, you may see the scattered flocks 

 sailing about serenely on broad, strong wings, 

 gliding and skimming and darting with a poetry 

 of motion few birds can equal. There are at 

 least three things one never tires of watching: 

 the blaze of a wood fire, the breaking of waves 

 on a beach, and the flight of a flock of gulls. 



Not many years ago gulls became alarmingly 

 scarce. Why? Because silly girls and women, 

 to follow fashion, trimmed their hats with gull's 

 wings imtil hundreds of thousands of these 



