The Western 
Gulls 
if their own homes are threatened, ‘Rob the Murres,’ 
they shout, and off they go to try for weak places. It 
has its historical analogies only in the persecution of the 
Christians at Rome or in the ‘Jew baiting’ of the 
Middle Ages. An idle mob finding itsell assembled for 
any cause and cheated of its first object, proceeds to do mis¬ 
chief to the favorite weaklings. Today I may have been 
partly responsible for the assemblage of unoccupied gulls— 
I was making a discriminating study of egg colonies in the 
west nesting—but I was in no way responsible for any dis¬ 
quiet among the murres. The gulls started that, and 
my attention was called to it by the outcries on and 
beyond the crest of the west arch. A crowd of thirty 
or forty gulls were hovering over a murre ledge and 
members of the party were continually dipping down to 
harry the Rumpfoots. The tactics succeeded, for the murres 
crowded forward and exposed a few eggs, which were promptly 
seized. At this point I intervened and forestalled the marauders 
in the name of Science. On other occasions since, I have seen 
alarms raised among the gulls for which no human 
presence was responsible, and invariably there is a 
movement of apprehension along the ledges, a 
shifting of position and a little desertion on the 
part of the more timid. And invariably, also, a 
few gulls detach themselves from the quarreling crowd of their own kind 
and make a hurried reconnaissance of the loomeries.” 
We soon found that if we wanted to do photographic stunts we re¬ 
quired no better bait than a few murres’ eggs temptingly exposed. The 
first comer might be wary, but he soon lost his scruples; while each 
successful seizure thereafter would be chorused by a shout of envious 
approval from other gulls less bold. 
By way of experiment, and to utilize certain murres’ eggs which the 
gulls would have got otherwise anyhow, we arranged a little series of 
substitutions. Our victims were the gulls nesting on the “shell beach” 
nearest the north spur of the central ridge. We substituted a murre’s 
egg for a gull’s; and bestowed the surplus eggs so gathered upon another 
member of the gidl family. Altogether we “doctored” ten nests, making 
a careful record of each change for future reference—then retired to note 
results. In every instance but one the birds returned promptly to their 
nests. The exception hesitated, apparently through fear of us, and not 
at all through suspicion of her nest. Even the one who had received a 
double portion of proper gull eggs did not hesitate to undertake her full 
1387 
Taken at Coronado 
Photo by Donald R. Dickey 
BANKING 
NOTICE USE OF ALULA, OR ‘ 
