J jj 2 Murdoch, A Historical Notice of Ross's Rosy Gull. [a^U 



tember 21, they were again abundant. They appeared in large, 

 loose flocks, coming in from the sea and from the southwest, and 

 all apparently flying to the northeast against the cold, fresh 

 breeze. Most of the flocks whirled in at the mouth of the lagoon 

 close to the station, and circled round the house with a peculiarly 

 graceful wavering flight, and many were shot almost from the 

 doorstep. For a week, as long as the east wind blew, they con- 

 tinued plenty, all following the same track. Then none were 

 seen until October 6, when there began another large flight, which 

 lasted for several days. On October 9, in particular, there was 

 a continuous stream of them all day long, moving up the shore 

 at a short distance from the beach, and occasionally swinging in 

 over the land. We saw none coming back. 



We were better prepared for them than we had been the 

 preceding autumn, but though all the guns turned out, the 

 number secured was exceedingly small compared with the num- 

 ber seen. The shooting was by no means easy, since for one 

 flock that passed within gunshot, twenty were out of range, and 

 the flocks were so loosely scattered that it was almost impossible 

 to secure more than one bird at a shot. 



However, we secured enough of them to satisfy any but the 

 most avaricious. When we came back to Washington, Dr. Coues 

 half seriously took me to task " for vulgarizing this beautiful 

 bird," and Professor Baird expressly forbade our making public 

 the number collected, for fear he should be overwhelmed with 

 requests for gifts or exchanges. To my great chagrin, I had 

 only a small share in this great shooting, for at the time the 

 Gulls were most abundant, I was laid up with a severe cold 

 which prevented me from doing any outdoor work, or indeed 

 from skinning the birds as they were brought in. This, however, 

 did no serious harm, because the birds were put away, — out of 

 reach of the dogs, this time — is our new block house, where 

 th-y soon froze solid, and staid frozen until I was ready to attend 

 to them. Every night, I used to pick out a batch of about half 

 a dozen, all that I wanted for a morning's work, and put them on 

 the rack behind the stove in the quarters, where we used to 

 dry our stockings, and the next morning they would be nicely 

 thawed out and ready to skin. Still, Arctic taxidermy has its 



