FLYERS, SWIMMERS, AND DIVERS 245 



Young — ^Upper parts ashy brown; head and neck marked 

 with buflf, and back and wings margined and marked 

 with the same color; outer feathers of wings brownish 

 black, lacking round white spots; black or brownish tail 

 feathers gradually fade to white. 



Range — ^Nests from Minnesota and New England north- 

 ward, especially about the St. Lawrence, Nova Scotia, 

 Newfoundland, and Labrador. Winters from Bay of 

 Fundy to West Indies and Lower Cahfornia. 



Season — ^Winter resident. Common from November until 

 March. 



As the robin is to the land birds, so is the herring gull to 

 the sea fowl — overwhelmingly predominant during the 

 winter in the Great Lakes and larger waterways of the in- 

 terior, just as it is about the docks of our harbors, along 

 our coasts, and very far out at sea. There are at least 

 three things one never tires watching: the blaze of a wood 

 fire, the breaking of waves on a beach, and the flight 

 of a flock of gulls sailing about serenely on broad, 

 strong wings — ^giiding and darting and skimming with a 

 poetry of motion few birds can equal. 



Not many years ago gulls became alarmingly scarce. 

 Why? Because silly girls and women, to follow fashion, 

 trimmed their hats with gull's wings until hundreds of 

 thousands of these birds and their exquisite httle cousins, 

 the terns or sea swallows, had been slaughtered. Then 

 some vigilant Audubon Societies said the massacre must 

 stop and happily the law now says so, too. Paid keepers 

 patrol some of the islands where gulls and terns nest, which 

 is the reason why one may see ashy-brown young gulls 



