q8 Dutchkr, Protection of Gulls and Terns. \_lta. 



ners, who left them lying on the rocks as an evidence of their 

 wicked cruelty. 



In response to the question whether the dark colored birds 

 ever mated with the white birds, Mrs. Stanley said that they did 

 when they were two years old. Her reason for this belief was as 

 follows : On one occasion a young gull had lost one of its legs 

 just above the knee. The wound healed but the bird was a 

 cripple and had to hop and stand on the perfect leg. They fed 

 the bird and it became very tame. In the fall it left with the 

 other gulls and returned with them the next spring, exhibiting 

 its old familiarity. That season, when the bird was only one year 

 old, it did not mate. It remained on and about the island all the 

 season, departing with the others on their southward migration. 

 The following season it returned again and was still partially dark 

 colored. It secured a white mate and raised a brood of young. 

 Mrs. Stanley, to illustrate how the birds have been presecuted in 

 the past, told the writer that a gang of stone cutters from Black 

 Island, where there is a large quarry, came to Duck Island on 

 one occasion and while there gathered up at least two or three 

 bushels of eggs, and after having set up a mark used the eggs as 

 missiles. The warden informed the writer that the Indian hunters 

 claimed to have killed, on the two Duck Islands, during the year 

 1899, at least twenty-eight hundred gulls. Mrs. Stanley said that 

 this year the number of gulls about the Duck Islands and in 

 South West Harbor showed a very marked decrease over the 

 numbers in 1899 and before. All of the garbage from the hotel 

 is taken out into the harbor and is dumped on the ebb tide. 

 Some hundreds of gulls were always awaiting the dumping hour, 

 but this year the fiock was exceedingly small in comparison with 

 the numbers prior to 1899. 



In South West Harbor are two docks where large quantities of 

 cod and other fish are cured and packed. The entrails are thrown 

 overboard and the gulls were in the habit of congregating there to 

 feed on the refuse. Men and boys would gather on the docks 

 and wantonly shoot the birds for sport. This has now been 

 stopped. Mrs. Stanley said that Petrels (^Oceanodroma hiuorhod) 

 were very numerous on Great Duck Island but that none were 

 ever seen during daylight, but as soon as it was dark they could 



