HABITS OF THE HERRING GULL—STRONG. 485 
The newly hatched young, according to my observations are more 
passive, and I obtamed some evidence that the parent may initiate 
the feeding performance. Similar conditions occur in the feeding. 
of young pigeons. On June 30, 1911, while taking observations on 
one of the Strawberry Islands, a pair of gulls whose nest was about 
5 feet from the base of my tent fed two young not many hours old 
and still too weak to walk well, at irregular intervals within 8 to 10 
feet from my point of observation. The little gulls had been coaxed 
away from their nest for a few feet by their a eae a distance which 
they covered with difficulty. 
The following notes concerning the observations just mentioned 
have been taken from my notebook. The bird shading its young 
was relieved at 12.40 p. m., and went down to the water for a drink. 
The other parent at once proceeded to feed the young gulls while 
the first bird stood a few feet away at the edge of the water. The 
adult bird did not insert its bill in the mouth of its offspring, but the 
latter took food from the ground just below the bill of the parent. 
Occasionally the young reached up toward the bill of the parent, 
which was held low, often almost at the ground (pl. 3, fig. 2). A 
quantity of food in a fine and soft condition was disgorged in more or 
lessofaheap. After the young had eaten, the parent swallowed what 
was left. These very young birds ate slowly, apparently without 
much appetite. The whole performance passed off quietly and with 
no rapid movements. 
At 1.45 p.m. I saw the same young birds being fed again. A little 
later I noticed another feeding of some gulls a few days older. Small 
fishes appeared in the food disgorged by the parent. 
In spite of the fact that the gulls seemed to settle down to normal 
activities durmg my tent work, I saw surprisingly few cases, rela- 
tively, of feeding the young. These were usually a little too far away 
to permit close observation, and it was seldom possible to determine 
by observation from my tent what the nature of the food was. 
The stomachs of six young herring gulls ‘‘of different sizes” as re- 
ported by Norton,* ‘‘contained almost no fish, but all contained ants 
in varying quantities, only one being full.” 
Where many young gulls occur in a relatively small area, it is diffi- 
cult to determine whether the adult birds always feed only their own 
young. The small amount of evidence I obtained suggested that the 
parents, usually, feed their own offspring. But it is of course possi- 
ble that birds usually feeding their own offspring may occasionally 
give food to other juvenals. 
At Gravel Island there was apparently considerable promiscuous 
feeding according to the observations of both Ward and myself. 
1 Dutcher, W., Report of committee on bird protection. Auk, 1904, vol. 21, No. 1, p. 164. 
