The California Gull 



middle stretches of the Sacramento River until within very recent years. 

 Cooke, 1 quoting Finley, states that they breed on Lower Klamath Lake 

 (in Oregon) and at Clear Lake. They have been found nesting in small 

 numbers at Lake Tahoe and on Eagle Lake. But the classical home nest- 

 ing-ground of the California Gull is Mono Lake. It was the author's 

 privilege to visit this spot in June, 1919, and the following account chiefly 

 involves observations made at that time. 



Mono Lake is a sheet of water some eighty-five square miles in extent, 

 which lies about midway of the State at the eastern foot of the Sierras, 

 at an elevation of over 6400 feet, and which stretches away to the eastward 

 into unreclaimed desert. Its waters are strongly impregnated with potash, 

 sodium sulphate, and other salts, and are, of course, not potable. In 

 spite of this handicap, they swarm with "a small Branchipus-like 

 Phyllopod," and the larvae of a certain fly. The former are ghostly 

 pale creatures, which appear more like deserted casts than objects 

 still animate. Yet it is upon these and the myriad flies which 

 gather at the water's edge that the teeming bird life of the region 

 must feed. The expanse of the lake is broken by two islands, Paoha 

 and Negit. The former, which has a land surface of nearly two 



1 Wells W. Cooke, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture Bulletin No. 292, (1915), p. 41. 





Taken in Mono County 



Photo by the Author 



NEST AND EGGS OF CALIFORNIA GULL 



T 4°5 



