250 LONG-WINGED SWIMMERS 



and most interesting type of this Family. It is an ideal 

 Gull — long-winged, large, white and pearl-gray in color, 

 strong, yet graceful on the wing, a good fighter, and suffi- 

 ciently plentiful in number to be known to millions of people. 

 It inhabits the whole sea-coast, and all the salt-water bays and 

 inlets of North America, the great lakes, the lakes and ponds 

 of Michigan, Minnesota, Iowa, and several of our larger rivers, 

 such as the Potomac, Mississippi, Missouri and Columbia. 

 From all their regular routes of travel and places of residence 

 they stray inland for an indefinite number of miles. 



The Herring Gull nests from southern Maine and the great 

 lakes northward to the Arctic Ocean, and makes its winter 

 home in the United States. All transatlantic voyagers have 

 seen it far out at sea, almost half-way between Sandy Hook 

 and Queenstown. 



In Georgian Bay the sight of Gull life on the crystal-clear 

 waters, and clean, bare islets of pink granite near Owen 

 Sound, was one of the most enchanting I ever beheld. Going 

 down Puget Sound on a cold and windy dav in November, a 

 large flock of the same old friends followed the steamer for 

 twenty miles, sailing along beside us, sometimes within ten 

 feet of the rail of the hurricane-deck — a sight which well 

 repaid one for half freezing in order to see it to the most per- 

 fect advantage. 



But why wander so far from home to see Gulls? Only a 

 mile from the Zoological Park is the Williamsbridge Reservoir 

 of the New York City water-works. Not long since curiosity 

 to ascertain whether any winter birds were being attracted 

 by that very small but high basin of water led me to climb 



