272 ROBERTS, Nesting Habits of Franklin's Gull. hit 
AN ACCOUNT OF THE NESTING HABITS OF FRANK- 
LIN’S ROSY GULL (ZARUS FRANRLIINI/), AS 
OBSERVED AT HERON LAKE IN SOUTH-— 
ERN MINNESOTA.! 
BY THOMAS S. ROBERTS, M. D. 
[ With Photographs from Nature by the Author. | 
THE Loca.ity where the following observations were made is a 
great marshy lake far out in the vast prairie region of southwestern 
Minnesota. It lies in Jackson County, one of the most southerly 
tier of counties of .Minnesota, and is fifty-six miles from the 
eastern line of South Dakota and thirteen miles from the northern 
line of Iowa. The southeastern end of the lake is at about 
43° 45' north latitude, and 95° 20 west longitude. Heron Lake, 
with certain neighboring sloughs within a radius of ten or fifteen 
miles, is the southernmost station at which Franklin’s Gull is 
know tonest. For many years after its first discovery in the Fur 
Countries by Dr. John Richardson, early in the third decade of 
the present century, it was considered to be a strictly boreal 
breeding species. And it was not until after the invasion of its 
nesting grounds at Shoal Lake and other Manitoban localities by 
Mr. Donald Gunn in 1867 that fragmentary accounts began to ap- 
pear from time to time disclosing the fact that many little bands 
of these birds cut short their northward flight to make their sum- 
mer home on the prairies of North Dakota and western Minnesota. 
To the present day little of definite character has appeared in our 
general works on ornithology in regard to the nidification of the - 
species. Several short articles in collector’s journals have ap- 
peared, most notable among them, and the source of much of 
the quoted information of late years, being an article by J. W. 
1 This article consists of extracts from a paper read at the meeting of 
the American Ornithologists’ Union in Philadelphia, November 15, 1899. 
The original paper, somewhat elaborated and accompanied by a consider- 
able series of illustrations from photographs from nature, is at present in 
course of publication by the Minnesota Geological and Natural History 
Survey. ; 
