16 NOTES ON NEW ENGLAND BIRDS 



again, and then its companion is lost in like manner, 

 having dived. 



March 16, 1859. We meet one great gull beating 

 up the course of the river against the wind, at Flint's 

 Bridge. (One says they were seen about a week ago, but 

 there was very little water then.) Its is a very leisurely 

 sort of limping flight, tacking its way along like a sailing 

 vessel, yet the slow security with which it advances sug- 

 gests a leisurely conteraplativeness in the bird, as if it 

 were working out some problem quite at its leisure. As 

 often as its very narrow, long, and curved wings are 

 lifted up against the light, I see a very narrow distinct 

 light edging to the wing where it is thin. Its black-tipped 

 wings. Afterwards, from Ball's Hill, looking north, I 

 see two more circling about looking for food over the 

 ice and water. 



March 18, 1859. Rice ^ thinks that he has seen two 

 gulls on the Sudbury meadows, — the white and the 

 gray gulls. He has often seen a man shoot the large 

 gull from Cambridge bridge by heading him off, for the 

 gull flies slowly. He would first run this way, and when 

 the gull turned aside, run that, till the gull passed 

 right over his head, when he shot him. Rice saw Fair 

 Haven Pond still covered with ice, though open along 

 the shore, yesterday. I frequently see the gulls flying 

 up the course of the stream, or of the river valley at 

 least. 



March 23, 1859. Then I see come slowly flying from 

 the southwest a great gull, of voracious form, which at 

 length by a sudden and steep descent alights in Fair 



* [Israel Rice, a Sudbury farmer living near the river.] 



