Gulls 



ward. Migrates in winter sometimes to South Carolina and 

 Virginia, but regularly to Long Island and the Great Lakes. 

 Season — September to April. 



The black-back shares the distinction with the burgomaster 

 of being not only one of the largest, most powerful representa- 

 tives of its family, but one of the most tyrannical and greedy. 

 So optimistic a bird-lover as Audubon said that it is as much the 

 tyrant of the sea fowl as the eagle is of the land birds. Like the 

 eagle again, it is exceedingly shy of men and inaccessible. " By 

 far the wariest bird that I have ever met," writes Brewster. This 

 same careful observer reports that he noted four distinct cries : 

 " a braying Ha-ha-ha, a deep keow, keow, a short barking note, 

 and a long-drawn groan, very loud and decidedly impressive," 

 when he studied it in the island of Anticosti. 



Soaring high in the air in great spirals, with majestic grace 

 and power, the saddle-back still keeps a watchful eye on what 

 is passing in the world below, and, quick as a hawk, will come 

 swooping down to pounce upon some smaller gull or other bird 

 that has just secured a fish by patient toil, to suck the eggs in a 

 nest left for the moment unguarded, or eat the young eider-ducks 

 and willow grouse for which it seems to have a special fondness ; 

 though nothing either young and tender, old and tough, fresh or 

 carrion, goes amiss of its rapacious maw. It is a sea scavenger 

 of more than ordinary capacity, and when faithfully playing in 

 this role it lays us under obligation to speak well of it. Certainly 

 the gulls and other sea fowl that eat refuse contribute much to 

 the healthfulness of our coasts. 



Before the onslaughts of this black-backed freebooter almost 

 all the tribe of sea fowl quail ; and yet, like every other tyrant, it 

 is itself most cowardly, for it will desert even its own young 

 rather than be approached by man, who visits the sins of the 

 father upon the children by pickling them for food when they are 

 not taken in the egg for boiling. 



Usually the nest is built with hundreds or even thousands of 

 others on some inaccessible cliff overhanging the sea ; or it may 

 be on an island, or on the dunes near the beach, in which latter 

 case it is the merest depression in the turf, lined with grass and 

 seaweed. Two or three — usually three — clay-colored or buff eggs, 

 rather evenly and boldly spotted with chocolate brown, make a 



38 



