BIRDS IN THE CALENDAR 



shore, and particularly in estuaries and where 

 the coast is rocky, gulls are a familiar sight 

 in the wake of steamers at the beginning and 

 ending of the voyage, as well as following 

 the plough and nesting in the vicinity of 

 inland meres and marshes. The black-headed 

 kind is peculiarly given to bringing up its 

 family far from the sea, just as the salmon 

 ascends our rivers for the same purpose. 

 It is not perhaps a very loving parent, seeing 

 that the mortality among young gulls, many 

 of which show signs of rough treatment by 

 their elders, is unusually great. On most 

 lakes rich in fish these birds have long 

 established themselves, and they were, I 

 remember, as familiar at Geneva and Neu- 

 chatel as along the shores of Lake Tahoe in 

 the Calif ornian Sierras, itself two hundred 

 miles from the Pacific and more than a mile 

 above sea-level. Gulls also follow the plough 

 in hordes, not always to the complete satis- 

 faction of the farmer, who is, not unreasonably, 

 sceptical when told that they seek wireworms 

 only and have no taste for grain. Unfortun- 

 ately the ordinary scarecrow has no terror 

 for them, and I recollect, in the neighbour- 

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