^°^S^T Strong, Habits of the Herring Gull. 189 



IX. Comparison of Diurnal and Nocturnal Behavior. 



As Herrick^ has well said, there is no repose by day or night in a gull 

 colony. Adults take naps at all hours, either while on the nest or 

 standing near. Often they simply doze with the head drawn close 

 to the body and the eyes shut, or the bill may be tucked inside a wing 

 with the eyes either open or closed in view. During the day 

 groups of gulls stand about dozing as may be seen in Plate X, Fig. 2. 



In order to get an idea of the entire daily cycle of activities at a 

 gull breeding place, I spent a night at one of the Strawberry Islands. 

 I arranged my trip so that it would cover those hours not included 

 on other days. Ward also spent a night at a gull colony and 

 I quote his interesting account ^ of his experiences as follows : 

 "Sleep seemed to occur perhaps a little more frequently during 

 the warmer hours of the afternoon than at other times, though 

 pretty evenly distributed through the twenty-four hours. The 

 birds sometimes stood, but more frequently squatted on the ground 

 and turned their heads over their backs and tucked them under 

 their wing feathers. Sleep was of very short duration, as fights, 

 panics and alarms of various sorts followed one another too closely 

 to allow of unbroken repose for more than a few minutes at a time. 

 The night that I spent among them there was less sleep than during 

 the day. The sun set about half past seven; but at eight o'clock 

 the colony was as busy as ever fighting, making abortive nests and 

 screaming. At ten minutes past eight the moon arose, and ten 

 minutes later nearly all the gulls suddenly took wing in what I 

 conceived to be a panic, until shortly afterwards I spied a large 

 flock of them on the water in the direction of the moon. Later 

 they worked around the island, so that I was between them and the 

 moon, and I could then see that they were busily fishing. My 

 notes continue up to a quarter of three, when I fell asleep with the 

 gulls still on the water and noisy. When I awoke at twenty min- 

 utes after four the sun was up, most of the gulls were on the island 

 and many young were teasing a few adults for breakfast." 



On July 7, 1911, at 7: 20 in the evening, I was on the island and 



1 Herrick, F. H. The Home Life of WUd Birds. Revised Ed. 1905. Put- 

 nam's Sons, New York and London, p. 112. 



2 Ward, H. L. Notes of the Herring Gull and the Caspian Tern. Bull. Wis- 

 consin Nat. Hist. Soc, Vol. IV., No. 4, October, 1906, p. 132. 



