Page:The birds of America, volume 7.djvu/241

Rh nests or seek for safety in the clefts of the rocks; the Guillemots and Gan- nets dread to look up, and the other Gulls, unable to cope with the destroyer, give way as he advances. Far off among the rolling billows, he spies the carcass of some monster of tbe deep, and, on steady wing, glides off towards it. Alighting on the huge whale, he throws upwards his head, opens his bill, and, louder and fiercer than ever, sends his cries through the air. Leisurely he walks over the putrid mass, and now, assured that all is safe, he tears, tugs, and swallows piece after piece, until he is crammed to the throat, when he lays himself down surfeited and exhausted, to rest for awhile in the feeble sheen of the northern sun. Great, however, are the powers of his stomach, and ere long the half-putrid food which, vulture-like, he has devoured, is digested. Like all gluttons, he loves variety, and away he flies to some well-known isle, where thousands of young birds or eggs are to be found. There, without remorse, he breaks the shells, swallows their contents, and begins leisurely to devour the helpless young. Neither the cries of the parents, nor all their attempts to drive the plunderer away, can induce him to desist until he has again satisfied his ever-craving appetite. But although tyrannical, the Great Gull is a coward, and meanly does he sneak off when he sees the Skua fly up, which, smaller as it is, yet evinces a thoughtless intrepidity, that strikes the ravenous and merciless bird with terror. If we compare this species with some other of its tribe, and mark its great size, its powerful flight, and its robust constitution, we cannot 1 ' but wonder to find its range so limited during the breeding season. Few indi- viduals are to be found northward of the entrance into Baffin's Ba}^, and rarely are they met with beyond this, as no mention is made of them by Dr. Richardson in the Fauna Boreali- Americana. Along our coast, none breed farther south than the eastern extremity of Maine. The western shores of Labrador, along an extent of about three hundred miles, afford the stations to which this species resorts during spring and summer; there it is abundant, and there it was that I studied its habits.

The farthest limits of the winter migrations of the young, so far as I have observed, are the middle portions of the eastern coast of the Floridas. While at St. Augustine, in the winter of 1831, I saw several pairs keeping company with the young Brown Pelican, more as a matter of interest than of friendship, as they frequently chased them as if to force them to disgorge a portion of their earnings, acting much in the same manner as the Lestris does toward the smaller Gulls, but without any effect. They were extremely shy, alighted only on the outer edges of the outer sand-bars, and could not be approached, as they regularly walked off before my party the moment any of us moved towards them, until reaching the last projecting point, they flew off, and never stopped while in sight. At what period they left that