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 Californian 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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