The California Gull 



Taken in Mono County 



THE WEST NESTING: PAOHA ISLAND 



Photo by the Author 



Space will fail us before we can tell of the migration of the California 

 Gull, of its extensive distribution at these seasons throughout the State, 

 and of its partiality for the mud flats and undisturbed loafing places. 

 We cannot speak at length of the birds' fondness for an evening or mid- 

 day stroll through the skies, nor of the diligence with which they wait 

 upon the plow and gather up grubs and earthworms. These traits the 

 California Gull shares with certain other species, although this species 

 stands preeminent among them as the farmer's assistant. One observer 

 has reported 1 a specimen whose stomach contents consisted of black 

 crickets and three whole meadow-mice. And it was to a colony of Cali- 

 fornia Gulls, I believe, that the early Mormons owed their "providential" 

 deliverance from a scourge of black crickets. At any rate the grateful 

 children of these pioneers have commemorated such an occurrence in the 

 famous gull monument in Salt Lake City. 



We are in haste, rather, to get at these birds in their summer haunts, 

 for our sojourn with them will be too brief at best. Doubtless in the very 

 early days the California Gulls bred much more extensively upon the island 

 fastnesses of our larger lakes than they do at present. One large colony, 

 at least, is known to have persisted at a shifting station somewhere in the 



1 H. C. Ohl in Calif. Fish and Game, Vol. 2 , No. 4. p. 218. 

 I4O4 



