83s XEbe Masstbe 
,| FFICIAL ORGAN OF THE WISCONSIN, ILLINOIS AND MICHIGAN AUDUBON SOCIETIES 
ie Year 25 Cents 
Single Copy 5 Cents 
Published by the Wisconsin Audubon Society at Madison, Wisconsin 
Entered as second class matter August 23, 1909, at Madison, Wis., under the act of Congress of March 3, 1879 
)L- XIII. 
FEBRUARY, 1912 
NO. 6 
A PLEA FOR THE HERRING GULL 
By Alfred C. Burrill, Entomologist’s Office, Madison, Wis. 
Protection of the common sea-gull 
been taken up in several states ol 
? union but it is still left for AViscon- 
l to secure' better protection to the 
V v colonies whicli come within her bor¬ 
ers on the Great Lakes. 
In looking up the economic value of 
je feeding habits of the gull, with the 
|d of protection in view, I discover 
ere is still some dispute among orn- 
lologists, who ought to know, as to 
e relative merits of the feeding hab- 
? of the gull during its widespread 
avels, in contrast to the same habits 
;out its natural breeding grounds, es- 
'eially with respect to the fishing in- 
ist,ry. First of all, some maintain 
at the sea-gull never dives below the 
irface for live fish (George II. McKay, 
Habits of the American Herring Gull 
New England ”; “The Auk”, n. s., 
ol. 0, p. 22:3) and use this argument 
iat the birds cannot catch many live 
ill of a size to interfere with the fisli- 
an’s interests. 
AVilliam Duteher (AY Dutcher and 
7. L Bailey “A Contribution to the 
ife History of the Ilerring-Gull in the 
. S.” “The Auk”, Yol. 20, p. 431) 
smarks, that in feeding the gulls cod- 
sb liver’s, “should a liver sink before 
can be picked up by a gull while 
overing, the bird will settle on the 
water and disappear under the surface 
in the effort to obtain the coveted tid¬ 
bit.” 
In Air. Braun’s, “Our Friends, The 
Sea-Gulls”, he makes the argument 
that they may occasionally dive for live 
fish when they are approaching in a 
starving condition. The variety of 
these diving habits would indicate that 
gulls are no conspicuous enemy to deep 
water fish. 
We man next ask how severly do the 
gulls prey on live fish at the surface. 
At the northward limit of the Atlantic 
breeding range of the gulls, Air. E. 
Coues in his “Birds of the Northwest”, 
tells how they feed on the many schools 
of lance-fish, the common food near the 
Labrador rookeries, while southward of 
this the gull is reported to eat more in¬ 
sects, bivalves, refuse and the like. But 
the name “hering-gull” indicates the 
bird’s well known taste for the schools 
of young herring and other small fish 
which frequently swim in vast shoals 
very near the surface of the sea, well 
depicted in Collier’s AAeekly for Feb¬ 
ruary, 1909. All attempts to decide 
upon the food of the sea-gull, as found 
in its stomach, fail to reveal whether 
the fish in course of digestion was cap¬ 
tured alive or not, since the digestive 
process is rapid, the head of a large 
A 
