The California Gull 
middle stretches of the Sacramento River until within very recent years. 
Cooke, 1 quoting Finley, states that they breed on Lower Klamath Lake 
(in Oregon) and at Clear Lake. 1 'hey have been found nesting in small 
numbers at Lake Tahoe and on Eagle Lake. But the classical home nest¬ 
ing-ground of the California Gull is Mono Lake. It was the author’s 
privilege to visit this spot in June, 1919, and the following account chiefly 
involves observations made at that time. 
Mono Lake is a sheet of water some eighty-five square miles in extent, 
which lies about midway of the State at the eastern foot of the Sierras, 
at an elevation of over 6400 feet, and which stretches away to the eastward 
into unreclaimed desert. Its waters are strongly impregnated with potash, 
sodium sulphate, and other salts, and are, of course, not potable. In 
spite of this handicap, they swarm with “a small Branchipus-like 
Phyllopod,” and the larvae of a certain fly. The former are ghostly 
pale creatures, which appear more like deserted casts than objects 
still animate. Yet it is upon these and the myriad flies which 
gather at the water’s edge that the teeming bird life of the region 
must feed. The expanse of the lake is broken by two islands, Paoha 
and Negit. The former, which has a land surface of nearly two 
1 Wells W. Cooke, U. S. Dept, of Agriculture Bulletin No. 292, (1915), p. 41. 
Taken in Mono County Photo by the Author 
NEST AND EGGS OF CALIFORNIA GULL 
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