LIST AND DESCRIPTION 47 
According to the United States Biological Survey, Farm- 
ers’ Bulletin No. 497, from ninety-three stomachs of the Frank- 
lin’s Gull examined it was found that during the breeding season 
grasshoppers constituted over forty-three per cent, and during 
September and October over eighty per cent of their food. All 
Gulls are valuable to the farmer, and he should use every effort 
in his power to see that they are protected from the gunner. 
Instances are on record of Gulls coming to the rescue of 
early settlers when insects were about to destroy their crops. 
One such instance is described by the Hon. George A. Cannon of 
Utah, in the Farmers’ Bulletin above referred to. In 1848 the 
Mormons had sown their first crop of wheat, with good pros- 
pects. Then, he says: “Black crickets came down by the mil- 
lion and destroyed our grain crops; promising fields of wheat 
in the morning were as smooth as a man’s hand at night— 
devoured by the crickets. At this juncture sea gulls (California 
Gulls) came by hundreds and thousands, and before the crops 
were entirely destroyed these gulls devoured the insects, so that 
our fields were entirely freed from them. The settlers at Salt 
Lake regarded the advent of the birds as a heaven-sent miracle. 
I have been along the ditches in the morning and have seen 
lumps of these crickets vomited up by these gulls, so that they 
could again begin killing.” The bulletin says, “These lumps 
of crickets were undoubtedly pellets of the indigestible parts 
habitually disgorged by the birds.” Gulls have ever since been 
held in reverence by the Mormon people. In October, 1913, a 
monument, said to have cost $40,000, was erected to the memory 
of the birds that saved these early settlers from a serious famine. 
60. Bonaparte’s GULL (Larus Philadelphia.) 
This Gull is often seen in large flocks during the fall mi- 
gration in our State. 
About fourteen inches in length and very similar in ap- 
pearance to the Franklin Gull but the tip of outer wing feathers 
is black and it does not have the rosy tinge on its breast that 
the latter may have. 
It breeds in Canada and northward. 
64. Caspian TERN (Sterna caspia.) 
The largest of the Terns and slightly larger than the com- 
