176 
Franklin’s Gull 
fresh growth as yet only waist high, and thus were not tall enough to 
impede the view. The eggs were in twos and threes, dark drab in hue, 
and heavily marked with black. It seemed as if the whole colony must 
be a-wing, yet at almost every step new multitudes were startled and 
rose with tragic screams. In every direction we were encompassed by 
thousands upon thousands of screaming, indignant, outraged birds. 
Those whose nests were at our feet darted at our heads with reckless 
abandon ; when we remained still for a time they would settle upon their 
nests within a dozen or fifteen feet of us. 
The place chosen by this assemblage was amid a denser growth and 
in less water than is often the case. The North 
A Skuat!on S Dakota colony I found nesting in quite open and 
deep water. Instead of reeds, a sparse growth of 
meadow-grass furnished support and anchorage for the nests. This was 
substantially the condition encountered by Dr. Roberts in his Minnesota 
colony, where the young would swim out from the protecting reeds ; 
then the wind would catch them and begin to blow them out into the 
rough open water, where they would doubtless perish. The old birds 
would try to compel them to swim back, which they were unable to do. 
Failing in this, they would lay hold of the youngsters with their bills 
and drag or hurl them back to their nests, sometimes wounded and 
bleeding. 
With the waning of July the life of these “white cities” also wanes. 
The nights grow sharp and chill, the frosts coat 
the sloughs with incipient ice, and the settler 
must bid adieu, for a time, to his companionable 
“Doves.” Like sailing-craft running free before the onslaughts of 
Boreas, they carelessly wander onward, to spend their “winter” where 
winter is but a memory, with choice variety of insect-life for daily fare. 
And when at length the northern prairie lakes and sloughs are unlocked 
from their icy bonds, and the “Prairie Pigeons” once more course the 
long deserted expanses, many a human heart is glad. 
Escaping 
Winter 
Classification and Distribution 
Franklin’s Gull belongs to the Order Longipennes, the Suborder Larina and 
the Family Larida. Its scientific name is Larus franklini. It is found in summer, 
and breeds from Iowa to the North Saskatchewan River, and northern Manitoba; 
and it winters from the coast of the Gulf of Mexico to Brazil and Chile. 
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