^.-^/j. Kax, Fottnig/tt o?i the Farallones. Vo^ 



secure from the pillaging gulls, and from which they were shoveled 

 out into the hold of small schooners or fishing boats without 

 packing. Although the great Farallon supply is now cut off, the 

 eggs still find their way, in limited quantities, to the city markets 

 from the rookery at Point Pedro, in the adjacent county of San 

 Mateo. 



5. Larus occidentalis. Western Gull. 



The gulls are the virtual rulers of bird-dom on the Farallones, and 

 that they live on the best the islands afford those suffering sub- 

 jects, the murres, cormorants and rabbits, will testify. I felt but 

 little compunction when taking their eggs, for it seemed but just 

 retribution. When a nest was disturbed in the main breeding 

 grounds the parents would set up a loud cry in which the sur- 

 rounding flocks would join until it became almost universal and 

 continuous. Some of the more pugnacious birds would dart down 

 at our heads, swerving upward at the last moment. 



While this bird builds in colonies, so to speak, they are not like 

 those of the cormorant or murre. There is always fighting room 

 between the nests and only the aggregations near Shell Beach, 

 Indian Head, and at Guano Slope on West End, and about Tower 

 Point on East End, could well deserve this term. Besides these 

 places we found them breeding in scattered congregations all 

 along the rocky terrace west of the Jordan, from the shore to the 

 highest points. On the east, in addition to the rookery at Tower 

 Point, we observed a dozen isolated nests at Bull Head Point, near 

 Arch Rock, and about half that number right at the Weather 

 Bureau observatory, where, rewarded for their confidence in man, 

 they brooded unmolested. The great mass of driftwood, thrown 

 up by winter storms, was a favorite spot in the Shell Beach Rook- 

 ery. We did not, however, observe any of these birds nesting off 

 the main island. (Plate XXVI.) 



While they are somewhat wary, many allowed us to come quite 

 close before rising from their nests. The latter are placed in nat- 

 ural basin-like hollows among the rocks, by which they are par- 

 tially sheltered, although some were in the most open and windy 

 situations. The nest is a bulky structure, composed of various dry 



