The Sabine Gull 



waters adjacent to the Channel Islands. But of the great tides of life 

 which annually or semi-annually surge upon and down our coast, we know 

 almost nothing. It is only when a reckless Larine sailor, a juvenile 

 most likely, puts into port that we hail the "record" and flatter ourselves 

 with an increase of knowledge. Or again, some luckless wight, fore- 

 spent with storms, pays tribute to mortality and wills his carcass to some 

 beach-prowling ornithologist. It is by such devious glimpses that we 

 guess that Sabine Gulls skirt our borders by tens of thousands — early and 

 rapidly in May; early and slowly on the return in August, or, more tardily, 

 till October. Off-shore records abound but they are only records of 

 glimpses. 



Sabine's Gull, although pretty careful to avoid the shore as such, 

 is, nevertheless, a poor marksman in aiming his southern flight. There 

 are casual records of its migratory appearance from almost every state 

 in the Union ; and Colorado has almost come to expect annual visitations. 

 There are, however, only three or four records of coastal contact in Cali- 

 fornia, and one from the interior, Mono Lake, by W. K. Fisher. A young 

 bird with a dark mantle seen at Santa Barbara on the 27th of August, 

 1915, was examined under binoculars, but not shot. The forked tail, 

 which is the distinguishing character of this species, appeared, as the bird 

 squatted in the mud and tilted the member in preening, displaying at the 

 same time a terminal black band which is a sign of immaturity. The 

 hinder edges of the wings were extensively white, so that the bird in flying 

 produced a momentary impression of likeness to a Willet. The "face" 

 was extensively white, giving way to a nondescript dusky, like that of 

 the mantle. 



Of the occurrence of this bird upon its northern breeding grounds 

 Nelson has left us the best account: "Sabine's Gull has a single harsh, 

 grating, but not loud note, very similar to the grating cry of the Arctic 

 Tern, but somewhat harsher and shorter. When wounded and pursued 

 or captured it utters the same note in a much higher and louder key, with 

 such grating file-like intensity that one feels like stopping his ears. It 

 has the same peculiar clicking interruptions which are so characteristic 

 of the cry of a small bat held in the hand. A low, chattering modifica- 

 tion of this is heard at times as the birds gather about the border of a fa- 

 vorite pool, or float gracefully in company over the surface of some grassy- 

 bordered pond. The same note, in a higher key, serves as a note of alarm 

 and curiosity as they circle overhead or fly off when disturbed. When 

 one of these gulls is brought down, the others of its kind hover over it, 

 but show less devotion than is usually exhibited by the terns. 



"On June 13, 1880, about 20 miles from Saint Michaels, while egging 

 in company with some Eskimo, we found a pond some 200 yards across, 



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