Vol.XVlin DuTCHER, Protection of Gulls and Terns. 97 



190 1 J 



under the care of Mr. D. DriscoU, the owner of Great Duck 

 Island. On the south end of Great Duck the United States has a 

 small reservation and a lighthouse. The head keeper, Capt. 

 Stanley, is an ardent bird lover and protector of the gulls, some 

 of which breed almost at his doorstep. The Indians attempted 

 early in the season to kill gulls on these islands but were driven 

 away by the warden. There is no doubt but that a large increase 

 in both colonies was made during the past season as the result of 

 the special protection given to them. Mrs. Stanley, the wife of the 

 light-keeper, owns and runs a beautifully located and well kept 

 summer hotel at South West Harbor. To her the Committee is- 

 under very great obligations for the active part she took in fur- 

 nishing us with valuable information and aid in the work. Her 

 intelligent knowledge of the birds and love for them made it 

 especially pleasant for the writer to talk with her. She stated 

 that the breeding gulls arrive regularly each year about March 

 27, hardly ever varying twelve hours from that date. They are 

 not mated when they arrive, and for at least a month they daily 

 have great meetings and caucuses until all are mated. No nest 

 building is commenced until the mating is completed, and the lay- 

 ing season usually commences about May 27, or fully two months 

 after their arrival on the breeding grounds. The nests are very 

 crude and rough affairs when built in the trees, simply a mass of 

 sticks, and within the last few years a few feathers have been 

 added. The gulls are very easily tamed ; on one occasion her 

 children found some young birds that had lost their parents. 

 These were brought to the light-station and were fed and cared 

 for until they were grown to full size. Even then, although they 

 were strong of wing and mixed in with the other birds when off 

 feeding, they came regularly every day and sat in a row on the 

 piazza of the lighthouse and called for food. 



On another occasion they brought up a brood of four orphaned 

 gulls and took them to the hotel when they went there for the 

 summer. The birds lived on a ledge of rocks near the hotel 

 grounds and were so tame that the guests of the house could 

 pick them up and handle or hold and feed them as though they 

 were domestic animals. They remained with them until late in 

 the season and were finally wantonly shot by some passing gun- 



