Cambridge 
1899. 
Nov.29. 
( 3 ). 
December. 
Larus a. sni thsonianus . 
, iici ss, 
puddling the air with its feet precisely after the manner of 
a dying Duel, that has fallen or turned over on its oack in the 
water. This performance was repeated several times. 
I also repeatedly saw Herring Gulls start and fly for a 
few rods and then suddenly pitch down on their sides with 
stiffly extended wings mailing the water fly os they struck 
the surface and sometimes sinking nearly out of sight. Occa¬ 
sionally several would do this in quick succession one follow¬ 
ing the other. 
Lothrop tells me that there are never many Gulls in the 
pond when the weather is cold and blustering and that the 
calmer and milder the day the greater the number assembled 
there. This is confirmed by my own observations in this and 
former years. We have both noticed also that all the Gulls 
leave the pond before dark each night. 
Walter Deane and I made the following counts at Fresh 
3 oo 96 c ^.32. s~oo & >6 
Pond: 11 , 13 ,14 ,17 ,21 ,25 . On several occa¬ 
sions when the weather was exceptionally calm and mild I vis¬ 
ited the Pond without finding a single Gull there. On the 
17th rather more than half the surface was closed by thin ice 
along the edges of which near the middle the birds began col¬ 
lecting until about 400 were assembled in a gray and white 
mass. In this throng we counted 85 gray birds - rather more 
