The California Gull 



world. Oh, it is a tragic time, when you think of it! A thousand births 

 in a day in a single community, and another thousand expected on the 

 morrow. Little time and scant welcome for visitors on such a day. 

 Prudence and good sense bid an early retirement, and I wish I had seen 

 less rather than more. 



But what an armed truce is there also ! Call it a "community"? To 

 be sure the birds crowd together as close as they dare, and they act 

 together in facing a common foe. But why do they crowd together? For 

 every beak is turned against every other beak, and the space between 

 nests is guaranteed in every instance to be greater than the distance 

 which can be bridged by two craning necks tipped by two pairs of hostile 

 mandibles. Crabbed tempers have these California Gulls, and the 

 brandished beak is the sign of welcome and the notice of departure to 

 any other of their own kind save their wedded partners, and not infre- 

 quently to them also. In conspicuous exception to this churlish behavior, 

 I recall two birds whom we dubbed "the lovers," which during the whole 

 period of our review (I was changing plates under the most awkward 

 circumstances at the Black Rocks colony), stood side by side with their 

 bodies in actual contact (such as birds rarely allow), the very picture of 

 amiability. Perhaps gull nature varies as much as human nature, and 

 there are happy exceptions to the universal grouch. 



A close student of comparative psychology or of the comparative 

 philology of gulls would have profited by a week's residence among these 

 birds. In general, I may say that the appearance and behavior of these 



Taken in Mono County 



THE PEACEFUL ISLES 



