THE HERRING GULL. 425 



scratches, extending more or less over the entire surface, 

 but frequently thicker at the large end. The thick and ele- 

 gant down of the newly-hatched young is nearly the color 

 of the egg. As these birds occupy the same site for breed- 

 ing, from year to year, it becomes generally known in the 

 vicinity, or if the spot be remote it is visited by fishermen 

 and adventurers from a distance; and the nests are robbed 

 most unmercifully, often until late in summer, the Gulls 

 continuing to lay in a very prolific manner. The disastrous 

 consequences of this cruel practice, thus kept up from year 

 to year, must be very great, rapidly reducing the number 

 of these birds, so useful as scavengers and so highly orna- 

 mental to the landscape. It is probably in consequence of 

 this continued disturbance that whole colonies about the 

 sea-shore have resorted to the trees for nidification. 



Visiting Seal Island, Yarmouth County, Nova Scotia, 

 last June (1883), I was most intensely interested in study- 

 ing the nesting of these Gulls on trees. A great part of the 

 island, as also of other islands in the vicinity, is covered 

 with a peculiar growth of black spruce (Abies nigra) ; rather 

 low, as if stunted by the cold foggy atmosphere, the branches 

 are very thick and numerous for the height of the tree, as if 

 made dense by the shortening of the trunk; and the broad 

 top is as flat as a Chinese umbrella. Climbing to the tops of 

 these trees, one seems to have reached an immense level plane 

 of dark green, across which a squirrel might run with all 

 ease. Indeed, it almost appears to the eye as if a man might 

 traverse it at least with snow-shoes. My first survey of 

 this scene was just after a bright June sunset. All over 

 this expanse of dark verdure, hundreds of Gulls were 

 alighted, singly, in pairs, and in groups, their chaste white 

 figures most elegantly tinted with the rosy hues of the lin- 

 gering sunlight, while many others were describing their 



