File:Bird lore (1907) (14753326404).jpg

Identifier: birdlore91907nati (find matches)
Title: Bird lore
Year: 1899 (1890s)
Authors: National Committee of the Audubon Societies of America National Association of Audubon Societies for the Protection of Wild Birds and Animals National Audubon Society
Subjects: Birds Birds Ornithology
Publisher: New York City : Macmillan Co.
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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bed,and fit the bird for resting on the water and swimming with allT e Gu s ^j^^ g^gg ^j ^ Duck, though without its swiftness. In winter plumage, the old birds head is streaked with gray and brown,while the young bird of the year is generally grayish brown, streaked and spottedon the upper parts, the breast and belly being marked with rusty brown andgray, in the combination seen in some of our Hawks. The name Herring Gull was given to this bird beforetime, because, as theywere originally fishermen by trade, their presence flying above the water toldwhere schools of herring were to be found. Today the schools of herring are less plentiful along our shores, and the value of this Gull, though greater than ever, is due to a different The Value of gQ^j-^^g^ Coming famiharly about the harbors of great cities, Gulls to Man . , , , r , ., r i frequentmg the beaches after the summer throngs of pleasure-seekers have left, the Gulls become the heaith-ofl&cers of the coast, gleaning not (277)
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The Herring or Harbor Gull 279 only the refuse of shore and vessel but of cities as well, when the sea-going gar-bage scows disgorge their loads Nature never creates a useless type, and even so wise a man as our scientificand far-seeing Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes was mistaken when he wrote of thisbird, Such is our Gull; a gentleman of leisure, Less fleshed than feathered ;—bagged youll find him such ;His virtue, silence ; his employment, pleasure;Not bad to look at, and not good for much. This verse is doubly surprising when you realize that ovur medical poet musthave daily seen the Gulls at work as scavengers in the nearby Charles river.It is another warning about careful seeing, for to overlook an important pointis as misleading as to get the habit of seeing what you would like to see in nature,rather than what is there. Of the thousands of people that see this Gull as a winter bird, compara-tively few know of its home life during the season when it has left us and thefirst breath

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