Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 52.djvu/229

Rh markets of San Francisco. I remember how horrified I was when 1 first heard this. It is to be hoped that such practices may cease, for if persisted in year after year the gulls and other sea birds will soon be as scarce as are terns on the coast of New Jersey and herons and pelicans on the Florida islands.

The most numerous of the gulls along the Pacific coast was the western gull (Larus occidentalis), a pure white bird with a slaty mantle. The young of this species have a dusty gray plumage. I saw many Heermann's gulls (Larus heermanni) at San Diego—slaty, blackish birds with a pure white mantle and smaller than the western gull. The young are of a pure slate color. A number of other



species were seen frequently along the coast; the glaucous-wing gull (Larus glaucus), a large white bird with pale pearly mantle; the ring-billed gull (L. delawarensis), smaller, white, with pale mantle and black tips to its wings; the California gull (L. californicus), almost the size of the western gull, with a paler mantle.

When one thinks of a gull, it is always in connection with the seacoast, but it does not follow that you can only study the gulls beside the ocean. The American herring gull (Larus smithsonianus), an interesting member of the family, is frequently found hundreds of miles inland. It is a most useful bird to the farmers in Utah. I saw large flocks in the fields near Salt Lake City. They will follow the plow, just as the robins and blackbirds do in the