38 WATER BIRDS 



Catalina. It is the species best known East and West, 

 following the coastwise vessels as well as those of the 

 Great Lakes, and feeding on the refuse thrown out. 



Its name of Herring Gull is probably derived from its 

 habit of following a school of herring, and gorging itself 

 upon them as it flies.. To see the countless numbers 

 of gulls and shearwaters hovering over a school of her- 

 rings in Monterey Bay is an experience worth a trip 

 across the continent. No words can describe their 

 multitude or their clamor. A compact cloud of them 

 two miles long and half a mile wide, seeming almost 

 like a solid mass of wings, is a common sight iu that 

 harbor. 



By a curious adaptation of its natural nesting-habits 

 to necessity for self-protection, in localities where its 

 nests have been continually robbed, it has learned to 

 build in trees sixty and seventy feet from the ground. 

 In these cases the nest is a compact structure some- 

 what resembling a crow's nest, but more often plastered 

 with a small amount of mud and lined with grasses and 

 moss. In fact, it adapts itself to local conditions in 

 placing and constructing its home : guided by some 

 instinctive law, it lays its eggs on the bare ground in 

 one region ; it elaborately lines and carefully conceals 

 its nest in another; and, wherever necessary for self- 

 preservation, it chooses a tall tree. 



The young gulls are fascinatingly fat babies covered 

 with fluffy down, and even prettier than ducklings. When 

 hatched in ground nests, they soon learn to run about, 

 and they are taken to the water when a few weeks 



