. Birds of America;. Birds -- North America. GULLS 47 The versatility of the Gull shows his degree of intelligence. He is equipped for life on the water. His webbed feet are for swimming, but he doesn't seem to care whether nature equips him for the sea or not. His taste often runs to angle-worms instead of sardines. As the notion takes him, lie will take up quarters about a pig-pen or a garbage pile, follow the plow as a Blackbird does, picking up angle-worms, or he will sail along in the wake of a vessel for days at a time to satisfy his taste for scraps. The California and Ring-billed Gulls
. Birds of America;. Birds -- North America. GULLS 47 The versatility of the Gull shows his degree of intelligence. He is equipped for life on the water. His webbed feet are for swimming, but he doesn't seem to care whether nature equips him for the sea or not. His taste often runs to angle-worms instead of sardines. As the notion takes him, lie will take up quarters about a pig-pen or a garbage pile, follow the plow as a Blackbird does, picking up angle-worms, or he will sail along in the wake of a vessel for days at a time to satisfy his taste for scraps. The California and Ring-billed Gulls generally nest together in big colonies on the inland lakes through the western part of the United States. In many places, these birds are of great economic importance. I have seen them sjiread out over the fields and through the sagebrush and get their living by catching grasshoppers. In Utah, the Gull lives about the beet fields and alfalfa lands and follows the irrigating ditches. \\ hen the fields are irrigated and the water rushes along, seeping into holes and driving mice from their burrows, the Gulls flock about and gorge themselves on these rodents. After the nesting season, large flocks of Cali- fornia and Ring-billed Gulls often collect along the southern coasts to spend the winter. While at Santa Monica, California, during the winter of 1905 and 1906, I often watched the flocks of Gulls returning every evening from far inland where they had been skirmishing during the day. I often saw them about the gardens and in the fields. A few miles from the ocean is the Soldiers' Home at Sawtelle. The garbage is hauled two or three times a day over to the pig- pens. When the dump wagon reaches the pens, the driver not only always finds himself besieged by a lot of hungry ]iorkers, but a flock of Gulls. Courtesy of Nat. .Afso .\ud. Soc. NEST AND EGGS OF CALIFORNIA GULL is always at hand to welcome his arrival. They sit around on the ground or fences waiting patiently. The Gulls
Size: 1787px × 1398px
Photo credit: © Library Book Collection / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookauthorpearsont, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1920, bookyear1923
