THE HERRING GULL 
By T. GILBERT PEARSON 
The National Association of Audubon Societies 
Educational Leaflet No. 29 
While sitting one afternoon on the veranda of a little hotel at Beaufort, 
North Carolina, idly watching a Herring Gull slowly beating about the 
harbor, I was surprised to see it suddenly fly down on a mud-flat, which 
had been exposed by the falling tide, grasp a clam in its bill, and, after 
A HERRING GULL ON ITS NEST 
Photographed by William Dutcher 
rising aloft about forty feet, let its burden fall. The bird quickly de- 
scended, seized its victim, then rose, and dropped it as before. This 
performance was repeated sixteen times, when the gull, after a final look 
at the clam, flew away, evidently discouraged. The gull was trying to 
break the clam’s shell, but the soft mud did not offer sufficient resistance 
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