The Short-billed Gull 



supply of food is more limited. One may see at a glance that they are not 

 fitted for competition. Their bills are not only shorter, but much more 

 delicately proportioned than those of the other gulls; while their gabbling, 

 duck-like notes oppose a mild alto to the screams and high trumpetings 

 of their larger congeners. 



Gulls of this and allied species are quick 

 to appreciate the advantages of protected 

 areas. Along the water front, or near 

 steamers, where shooting would not be al- 

 lowed, they become very bold. Short-bills, 

 however, do not stand about on palings, 

 and piles, and roofs, as do the Westerns, 

 but rest, instead, almost exclusively on the 

 water. Thus, if one attempts to bait the 

 gulls with an offering of bread laid on the 

 wharf-rail, the larger gulls will begin to 

 line the neighboring rails and posts, craning 

 their necks hungrily, or snatching exposed 

 fragments; but the Short-bills will settle 

 upon the water and draw near to the piling below, con 

 tent to catch such crumbs as fall from the high-set table. \^ J ,' 



Away from the city the gulls become increasingly wary, *-^ 

 for no other reason than that sneaks with guns will do 

 what the law forbids, as often as they think themselves safe from observa- 

 tion. Once a gull is killed or wounded, its companions hover about it 

 with piteous cries, momentarily forgetful of their own danger, or indifferent 

 to it, as they urge their fallen comrade to escape. This sympathetic trait 

 is, of course, taken advantage of by the Fourth-of-July sportsman (?), 

 whose only requirements are noise and something to shoot at. 



Gregariousness admits of every degree, from the momentary exhibi- 

 tion of sympathy, or the chance assemblage of hawks in migration, to 

 those perfectly timed evolutions of sandpeeps or sparrows which are at 

 once our admiration and our despair. The larger species of gulls fore- 

 gather closely at nesting time or struggle en masse at the garbage dump; 

 but in flight they are independent or only casual in their associations. 

 The smaller species, on the other hand, sometimes exhibit genuine flock 

 impulses. Such an example I once beheld at Santa Barbara, where a 

 flock of some 200 of these Mews, all immature, lay off-shore under a 

 strong breeze. Something frightened them and, rising upon the instant 

 en masse, they moved off in close order, wheeled and turned, and presently 

 settled again with a discipline as perfect as that displayed by a flock 

 of plovers. Some feathered Wellington must have had that youthful 



Taken in Washington 

 Photo by the Author 



"HOVERING DOVES' 



1419 



