The Heermann Gull 



Conclave of An- 

 cient Loafers, the 

 sun- warmed, 

 surf-soothed, pel- 

 ican-fed concat- 

 enation of incor- 

 rigible indolents. 

 "The night is for 

 sleep and the day 

 is for rest," says 

 the Heermann 

 Gull, who, being 

 a Mexican (in 

 spite of his Ger- 

 man name, which 

 is no fault of his), 

 knows something 

 of Spanish prov- 

 erbs. 



It is permit- 

 ted to loaf, in the 

 Southland, — to 

 loaf and to invite 

 one's soul. The 

 Swift does not 

 see it all, nor yet 



Jenny Wren, always a-flutter. Who but a Heermann Gull, sitting 

 tranquil on a timber hard by, could have shared such a vision of beauty 

 as came to me once on a Redondo pier! Gazing northward, we viewed 

 the breakers lengthwise, as they broke under a burning sun upon a perfect 

 shore. There was a stiff breeze outside, so that the billow, fleeing under 

 the lash of its master, suddenly encountered an area of immovable air. 

 A sheet of spray would be torn from the crest of the incoming comber, 

 and this would flash into a splendor of prismatic light. And the spectacle 

 was more beautiful than that of a mere rainbow, for this Triton's crest 

 would exhibit only one color at a time, a single hue of the immortal seven, 

 raised to some electric shade of diaphanous brilliancy. Moreover, the 

 illuminated mist changed color by sudden leaps in its shoreward progress, 

 as though it were traversing the field of some heavenly spotlight, the 

 defractive area of a prism de luxe, so large that it had to be served up to 

 the human eye on the instalment plan. The commonest shade I caught 

 was a lumiere green, or viridine, an instant vision of budding springtime 



Taken in California 



HEERMANN GULLS, ADULTS AND IMMATURE 



Photo by W. L. Finley 



1429 



