246 BIRDS 



nowadays in almost every flock. When they mature, a 

 pearl-gray mantle covers their backs and wings, and their 

 breasts, heads, and tails become snowy white. Their col- 

 oring now suggests fogs and white-capped waves. 



Why protect birds that are not fit for food and that kill 

 no mice nor insects in the farmer's fields? is often asked. 

 A wise man once said "the beautiful is as useful as the use- 

 ful"; but the picturesque gulls are not preserved merely to 

 enHven marine pictures and to please the eye of travelers. 

 They fill the valuable oflice of scavengers of the sea. 

 Lobsters and crabs, among many other creatures under the 

 ocean, gulls, terns, and petrels, among many creatures over 

 it, do for the water what the turkey buzzard does for the 

 land — rid it of enormous quantities of refuse. When one 

 watches hundreds of gulls following the garbage scows out 

 of New York harbor, or sailing in the wake of an ocean 

 liner a thousand miles or more away from land, to pick up 

 the refuse thrown overboard from the ship's kitchen, one 

 realizes the excellence of Dame Nature's housecleaning. 



Gulls are greedy creatures. No sooner will one member 

 of a flock swoop down upon a morsel of food, than a horde 

 of hungry companions, in hot pursuit, chase after him to 

 try to frighten him into dropping his dinner. With a 

 harsh, laughing cry, akak, leak, akak, kak, kak, they wheel 

 and float about a feeding ground for hours at a time. 



And they fly incredibly far and fast. A flock that has 

 followed an ocean greyhound all day will settle down to 

 sleep at night "bedded" on the rolling water like ducks 

 while "rocked in the cradle of the deep." After a rest that 

 may last till dawn, they rise refreshed, fly in the direction 

 of the vanished steamer, and actually overtake it with ap- 

 parent ease in time to pick up the scraps from the break- 



