The Glaucous-winged Gull 
the major emotions. This fact was forced home upon the writer only 
when he lay in camp, a voluntary Crusoe for a week, on a bird rock of 
lower Puget Sound. Here, since there was nothing to be heard save the 
murmuring of the sea, the hissing of Pigeon Guillemots, and the notes of 
the Glaucous-winged Gulls, it is not surprising that the last-named began 
to fall into some sort of order, with dawning significances as the week 
drew to its close. At the risk of wearying the reader, since the experience 
is possibly unique, I venture to enumerate the leading sounds, or phrases, 
of this little-known gull tongue: 
The beak-quaking notes— harsh, 
unmusical, and of moderate pitch, 
used to express distrust and 
tinued disapproval. During 
delivery the mandibles are 
con 
brought together three or four 
times in moderate succession. 1 his 
is the ordinary scolding, or distress 
cry, of characteristic and uniform pitch, save that it is raised to a higher 
key when the speaker becomes vehement. The phrase varies from three to 
five notes, and is uttered in the following cadences: kak'-ako'; ka' ka, ka 
ka; ka' ka kaka'; kakak', ka' kakak'; kak'-akak'-a-ka. 
Taken in Seattle Photo by the Author 
FACING THE TIDE 
1375 
