as it skipped or jumped along the sands. 



After a time we came to recognize individuals of the flock. One fat old 

 bird, christened "Squawker" . As soon as one of us appeared in sight this gull 

 opened his mouth wide, emitted a series of loud, hoarse cries, and darting at 

 the other gulls in his immediate vicinity proceeded to run amuck through the 

 whole flock. This strategem, intended one may suppose, to intimidate the other 

 feeders, he repeated every two or three minutes while the feast lasted. He 

 rarely got anything to eat, however, unless food were thrown directly to him; 

 he was so busily engaged in squawking, airing his importance and in assaulting 

 the neighbors that the other gulls, meantime, had all the advantage and ate all 

 the provender, I have been told that squawkers, their characters modified to 

 suit a varying environment, exist among genera presumably higher than the Laridae , 

 but that statement must surely be an error of observation. 



Of the fifty species of Gulls found all over the world, at least thirty 

 inhabit the Americas, It is difficult to explain their complete absence from 

 the immense ocean area between the South American continent and Australasia, It 

 seemed as if we had missed something when, after the crowds of gulls in San 

 Francisco harbor and along the Pacific coast, we should have failed to see a 

 single one during the long journey to ^7 Zealand, I presume little of the 

 food the biids crave is available in the lagoons and atolls of Polynesia. 



Although I have studied these birds in many lands, I have never seen any 

 of them catch fish after the manner of their cousins, the terns. On one occa- 

 sion I thought I saw a T/e"stern Gull light on the water and pull out a fish, but 

 of this I am by no means certain; the bird gave me little opportunity for in- 

 vestigation, as he swallowed his catch at once, without taking wing. Moreover 

 the prey may have been a dead fish floating on or near the surface, I was, 

 of course, fairly well acquainted with the hawking habit of our Laughing Gull 

 ( Larus atricilla ), as well as the Franklin and other species, and have seen in- 

 dividuals of several of these hunting and catching insects and even field mice, 

 swooping after them almost with the agility of sparrow hawks. In view of this 

 lack of opportunity, I was much interested in the account furnished by a writer 

 in the Contributor's Column of a recent Atlantic of gulls in South America that, 

 unlike their northern relatives, dive to a considerable depth for fish;- "These 

 birds are very similar to their couHins of the north; they are, though, less 

 well groomed, and do not look as sleek and nice as their northern neighbors* 

 The only noticeable difference is in the shape of the wing which has a decided 

 break and not the even beautiful curve of the. wing that the northern sea-gull 

 has. From my home in Valparaiso I have watched these birds dive, and sometimes 

 from a height of a hundred feet. It is a peculiar thing that they do this in 

 flocks rather than singly. A most remarkable sight it is to watch - - to see a 

 hundred or more birds turn, as if by one accord, close their wings and dive in 

 after the fish. A beautiful sight it is, too, to see a flock of sea-gulls 

 serenely circling above the waters dive, to catch for a moment the flash of the 

 white feathers of their upturned wings in the sunlight, to see them strike the 

 water, and again to see them bob up one by one. Of note is it that almost never 

 did I s-se one return unrewarded," 



Did you ever notice a colony of gulls sitting quietly in the open? If 

 there is little or no ^7ind, and the day is bright, they stand or lie, either in 

 a long line or in closer formation, facing the sun . And, by the way, what a 

 pretty sight - these smooth, well- groomed, statuesque, half -white bodies, bathed 



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