NATURAL HISTORY. 



A GULL'S FUNERAL. 



Gulls have funerals. I have seen one of 

 their funerals myself. My home was, a little 

 time ago, in what was then the Hotel Im- 

 perial, at the corner of 12th Street and 

 Michigan Avenue, Chicago, 111. From the 

 upper stories of this hotel an outlook was 

 had over the water area to the North in 

 front of the heart of the city, and of down- 

 town Michigan Avenue, where many of the 

 great hotels are located. In this water- 

 front area many breakwaters run out here 

 and there, but the gulls do not mind break- 

 waters. They hover in vast numbers above 

 the lake close to Chicago; for from Chi- 

 cago's outlets comes the food which gives 

 sustenance to hordes of them. They are 

 wonderful, these gulls. Cold does not af- 

 fect them, for they are on the ice-cakes 

 all winter and feed on what drifts to them. 

 They swoop all about, up and down, 

 as cheerful as they were in the warmer 

 months. But this is not a story of their 

 life or nesting, and departure and breeding. 

 It is but the account of one of their funerals. 



One Sunday I saw a group of what are 

 called " toughs " creep out along the break- 

 water. One of them had a gun. He shot 

 into a group of hovering gulls, of which 

 there were myriads dipping up and down 

 in front of the Michigan Avenue fine hotels. 

 He hit and crippled a gull and it fell, 

 shrieking, into the water. Immediately all 

 the other gulls flew away out over the lake, 

 but the wounded bird did not cease its 

 clamor. The ruffian who had shot it clam- 

 bered from the breakwater into a boat and 

 rowed out clumsily and, finally, caught the 

 crippled thing, pulled it into his boat and 

 killed it. 



Then followed something curious. The 

 host of gulls came sweeping back and 

 swirled about above where the city brute . 

 was rowing back with the dead gull lying, 

 wings outspread, beside him, in the boat's 

 bottom. They gave utterance to cries quite 

 unlike those they ordinarily make along the 

 Chicago water-front and, though short, as 

 understandable as the notes of the Dead 

 March in Saul. Then, gradually, they rose 

 higher and higher. They rose until there 

 were thousands of thern flitting back and 

 forth vainly together, at a height of per- 

 haps 800 feet. Suddenly there seemed to 

 come to them some sense of order. They 

 rose, together, very high, swinging about 

 each other as they rose and giving utter- 

 ance to a strange, protesting cry. They 

 paid no more attention to the man rowing 

 along with the dead bird in the boat. They 

 began to circle and still to rise until it was 

 hard to distinguish them apart and then 

 began to swing in circles like poised hawks, 



the whole open mass of them all the time 

 drifting away slowly to the Southwestward 

 until they were lost in the blaze of the 

 light of the early afternoon. That was the 

 first gull funeral I ever saw. 



The other day I saw the same thing again, 

 although the gulls seemed to circle indi- 

 vidually on this occasion, till as they came 

 together, like swinging hawks, about 2,000 

 feet above the city's roofs, they swung off 

 again, far up in the sky, toward the South- 

 west, floating like a group of buzzards. I 

 suppose that, an hour or two later, they 

 came to the lake again, because the funeral 

 was over. 



This all seems odd and unnatural, but, 

 let anyone shoot a gull on Lake Michigan, 

 in front of Chicago, and see what will hap- 

 pen! Is the same phenomena noted on the 

 sea-coast, or do only the inland gulls have 

 these sky-seeking funerals? What does it 

 all mean? 



WOMEN TO THE RESCUE. 



It is a matter of comfort and congratula- 

 tion that a movement to protect our singing 

 and other native birds has been inaugurated 

 which promises to bring a permanent re- 

 sult. The old Audubon Society which, for 

 a time, accomplished much good, both in 

 the East and West, had, somehow, failed in 

 energy and, within the last year or two, 

 cheap bird butchers have slain robins, 

 and orioles and purple wing blackbirds 

 (grakles) and bluebirds, and others of our 

 common birds, by thousands and tens and 

 hundreds of thousands. These were for the 

 decoration of women's bonnets. There is 

 likely to be a change now and a permanent 

 one. The women's clubs of the country 

 are actively engaged in the reform and, as 

 they include the leading women of the 

 greatest cities and towns of the country, 

 the crusade is likely to affect the trades- 

 men and stop the slaughter. As the kill- 

 ing has been done in nesting-time, when 

 birds' plumage is at its best, each bird killed 

 has meant the starving to death of a nest- 

 ful; and so the decrease in bird life has been 

 enormous. Now there will be a change. 

 At the head of the movement is Miss Ada 

 C. Sweet, late President of the Chicago 

 Woman's Club, and all, or nearly all the 

 women's clubs in the country seem re- 

 sponding to the movement. Mrs. Ellen M. 

 Henrotin, President of the National Fed- 

 eration of Women's Clubs, is not less ear- 

 nest, and the leading women of the country 

 seem banding together, everywhere, to 

 bring an end to the infamous and cruel 

 fashion. 



It is matter of congratulation that the 



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