The Annals of the Porch Club 165 



^ngler would ever use a worm. Caught a Shanghai rooster, 

 eh? " and old B. led the laugh which raised the porch an inch. 



" Speaking of birds and fishing," continued the Yale Pro- 

 fessor, " some years ago I was living on a ranch in Arizona. 

 I'll never forget it, as one day, a sandspout struck the 

 dinner outfit, and sent about forty tin plates half a mile in 

 air ; it rained tin plates in Cochise county for a week. On 

 the place was a long-armed windmill, which worked with a 

 bucket. One morning a cow-puncher came in and said there 

 was a queer lot of birds trying to pump the windmill. I 

 went out, and there were three or four gulls sitting on the 

 arms of the windmill. As their weight turned the wheel 

 over, they would hop on to the next arm above, and then the 

 next, turning the wheel slowly, but surely, and in a short 

 time water began to flow out of the nozzle. 



" Now, how these gulls knew it, is more than I can tell, 

 but Don Ramon, who owned the ranch, had put some trout 

 in the well, and as the gulls hopped from arm to arm, turn- 

 ing the wheel, a trout came out, and one of the gulls flew 

 down and caught it, then flew up again, alighting on the 

 windmill wheel. These gulls would have cleaned up all the 

 fish if Don Ramon had not come out. I consider that a 

 most remarkable illustration of the intelligence of gulls." 



" Excuse me," said R., looking at the speaker, " are you 

 a nature writer? " 



" No, I am not," replied the Professor with a show of 

 indignation. "Why?" 



R. made no reply. He was watching the Duke (let us say 

 of Devonshire, because that was not the name on his cards) 

 out of the corner of his eye. The Duke had come to Santa 

 Catalina, incognito, to catch a tuna, and he was the only 

 man on the island who did not know that he was known to 

 every one ; yet no one told him, and he was accepted by the 

 Porch Club members, that being the guileless, hospitable 

 and unsuspicious way they had of taking in the stranger. 

 R. was musing, and for a moment he was uncertain what 



