The Sabine Gull 
waters adjacent to the Channel Islands. But of the great tides of life 
which annually or semi-annually surge upon and down our coast, we know 
almost nothing. It is only when a reckless Larine sailor, a juvenile 
most likely, puts into port that we hail the “record” and flatter ourselves 
with an increase of knowledge. Or again, some luckless wight, fore- 
spent with storms, pays tribute to mortality and wills his carcass to some 
beach-prowling ornithologist. It is by such devious glimpses that we 
guess that Sabine Gulls skirt our borders by tens of thousands—early and 
rapidly in May; early and slowly on the return in August, or, more tardily, 
till October. Off-shore records abound but they are only records of 
glimpses. 
Sabine’s Gull, although pretty carefid to avoid the shore as such, 
is, nevertheless, a poor marksman in aiming his southern flight. There 
are casual records of its migratory appearance from almost every state 
in the Union; and Colorado has almost come to expect annual visitations. 
There are, however, only three or four records of coastal contact in Cali¬ 
fornia, and one from the interior. Mono Lake, by W. K. Fisher. A young 
bird with a dark mantle seen at Santa Barbara on the 27th of August, 
1915, was examined under binoculars, but not shot. The forked tail, 
which is the distinguishing character of this species, appeared, as the bird 
squatted in the mud and tilted the member in preening, displaying at the 
same time a terminal black band which is a sign of immaturity. The 
hinder edges of the wings were extensively white, so that the bird in flying 
produced a momentary impression of likeness to a Willet. The “face” 
was extensively white, giving way to a nondescript dusky, like that of 
the mantle. 
Of the occurrence of this bird upon its northern breeding grounds 
Nelson has left us the best account: “Sabine’s Gull has a single harsh, 
grating, but not loud note, very similar to the grating cry of the Arctic 
Tern, but somewhat harsher and shorter. When wounded and pursued 
or captured it utters the same note in a much higher and louder key, with 
such grating file-like intensity that one feels like stopping his ears. It 
has the same peculiar clicking interruptions which are so characteristic 
of the cry of a small bat held in the hand. A low, chattering modifica¬ 
tion of this is heard at times as the birds gather about the border of a la- 
vorite pool, or float gracefully in company over the surface of some grassy- 
bordered pond. The same note, in a higher key, serves as a note of alarm 
and curiosity as they circle overhead or fly off when disturbed. When 
one of these gulls is brought down, the others of its kind hover over it, 
but show less devotion than is usually exhibited by the terns. 
“On June 13, 1880, about 20 miles from Saint Michaels, while egging 
in company with some Eskimo, we found a pond some 200 yards across, 
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