LIST AND DESCRIPTION 47 



According to the United States Biological Survey, Farm- 

 ers' Bulletin No. 497, from ninety-three stomachs of the Frank- 

 lin's Gull examined it was found that during the breeding season 

 grasshoppers constituted over forty-three per cent, and during 

 September and October over eighty per cent of their food. All 

 Gulls are valuable to the farmer, and he should use every effort 

 in his power to see that they are protected from the gunner. 



Instances are on record of Gulls coming to the rescue of 

 early settlers when insects were about to destroy their crops. 

 One such instance is described by the Hon. George A. Cannon of 

 Utah, in the Farmers' Bulletin above referred to. In 1848 the 

 Mormons had sown their first crop of wheat, with good pros- 

 pects. Then, he says : "Black crickets came down by the mil- 

 lion and destroyed our grain crops ; promising fields of wheat 

 in the morning were as smooth as a man's hand at night — 

 devoured by the crickets. At this juncture sea gulls (California 

 Gulls) came by hundreds and thousands, and before the crops 

 were entirely destroyed these gulls devoured the insects, so that 

 our fields were entirely freed from them. The settlers at Salt 

 Lake regarded the advent of the birds as a heaven-sent miracle. 

 I have been along the ditches in the morning and have seen 

 lumps of these crickets vomited up by these gulls, so that they 

 could again begin killing." The bulletin says, "These lumps 

 of crickets were undoubtedly pellets of the indigestible parts 

 habitually disgorged by the birds." Gulls have ever since been 

 held in reverence by the Mormon people. In October, 1913, a 

 monument, said to have cost $40,000, was erected to the memory 

 of the birds that saved these early settlers from a serious famine. 



60. Bonaparte's Gull (Larus Philadelphia.) 



This Gull is often seen in large flocks during the fall mi- 

 gration in our State. 



About fourteen inches in length and very similar in ap- 

 pearance to the Franklin Gull but the tip of outer wing feathers 

 is black and it does not have the rosy tinge on its breast that 

 the latter may have. 



It breeds in Canada and northward. 



64. Caspian Tern (Sterna caspia.) 



The largest of the Terns and slightly larger than the com- 



