Tahoe in
the Californian Sierras, itself two hundred miles from the Pacific and
more than a mile above sea-level. Gulls also follow the plough in
hordes, not always to the complete satisfaction of the farmer, who is,
not unreasonably, sceptical when told that they seek wireworms only and
have no taste for grain. Unfortunately the ordinary scarecrow has no
terror for them, and I recollect, in the neighbourhood of Maryport,
seeing an immense number of gulls turning up the soil in close proximity
to several crows that, dangling from gibbets, effectually kept all black
marauders away.

Young gulls are, to the careless eye, apt to look larger than their
parents, an illusion possibly due to the optical effect of their dappled
plumage, and few people unfamiliar with these birds in their succeeding
moults readily believe that the dark birds are younger than the white.
Down in little Cornish harbours I have sometimes watched these young
birds turned to good account by their lazy elders, who call them to the
feast whenever the ebbing tide uncovers a heap of dead pilchards lying
in three or four feet of water, and then pounce on them the moment they
come to the surface with their booty. The fact is that gulls are not
expert divers. The cormorant and puffin and guillemot can vanish at the
flash of a gun, reappearing far from where they were last seen, and can
pursue and catch some of the swiftest fishes under water. Some gulls,
however, are able to plunge farther below the surface than others, and
the little kittiwake is perhaps the most expert diver of them all,
though in no sense at home under water like the shag. I have often, when
at anchor ten or fifteen miles from the land, and attended by the usual
convoy of seabirds that invariably gather round fishing-boats, amused
myself by throwing scraps of fish to them and watching the gulls do
their best to plunge below the surface when some coveted morsel was
going down into the depths, and now and again a little Roman-nose puffin
would dive headlong and snatch the prize from under the gulls' eyes.
Most of the birds were fearless enough; only an occasional
"saddleback"--the greater black-backed gull of the text-books--knowing
the hand of man to be against it for its raids on game and poultry,
would keep at a respectful distance.

Considered economically, the smaller gulls at any rate have more friends
than enemies, and they owe most of the latter not so much to their
appetites, wh