The Gullible Gulls

I

WE were standing on the shore, and tossing out some scraps of bread. We were trying to feed a gull with a lame foot; but the competition among the birds was so sharp that the food always went to the quickest. However, by tossing the bits just right, the bird with the injured member got his share. He stayed on the ground. The others were so expert that they caught the chunks of bread in mid-air almost as soon as they left the hand.

In the midst of the feast, a bystander stepped up and slipped in the stump of a cigar. It was grabbed before it hit the ground, and the glib onlooker hawhawed at the joke. It was a good deal like the April-fool joke of coating a piece of soap with chocolate and handing it to a friend. The gull, however, was not so badly fooled, for he dropped to the sand and laid the cigar-stub on the beach, with a side cock of his head to take a look at it. Many a bite may be taken, or even swallowed, before one knows whether it is good for his physical make-up; but this in itself is not always an indication of stupidity. The point is whether the individual discovers his mistake quickly enough to react. Here is where the gull is more discreet than other birds.

An ostrich, for instance, has little idea of taste. He eats chopped alfalfa, grain, and pebbles. He takes a liking to oranges, and swallows them whole because they are bright-colored. Eating is merely a habit of swallowing with him, and anything of reasonable size is gulped down, whether it is bread, a nail, or a doorknob. When it starts the journey down his long neck, it does n’t come back. Here are two vital differences between the ostrich and the gull. The one is foolish and swallows from curiosity; the other is wise and has a decided taste. Again, when the ostrich makes a mistake by swallowing something that is n’t good for his make-up, he seems to have no alternative; but the gull has the ability to order it up and reconsider.

I discovered this one day when standing on the beach at Netarts on the Oregon coast. The gulls had gathered around with expectant expressions. I tossed the nearest one a piece of salt salmon. As it was slipping down his neck, it occurred to him that it did n’t have exactly the right taste. He ordered it out, and holding it in his bill, walked over to the edge of the water and laid it down. He looked at the fish with a side turn of his head, and then at me, with an expression that plainly said a man must be a fool to spoil such a good piece of fish. He shook it and soused it in the water, and started it on the downward journey again. Still, the morsel did not suit his palate. He ordered it out a second time, and laundered it thoroughly for ten minutes, until the salty flavor was gone.

Again, I find a gull shows more than blind instinct when it comes to hunting his meals. He has a bill that is not strong enough to handle some kinds of shellfish. He eats a small crab by tearing it to pieces and swallowing it, shell and all. The juices of his stomach dissolve the meaty portions, and later he regurgitates the shell.

One day we were digging clams. I laid two or three out in the open, to see if the gulls would know the difference between these and the rocks. A gull picked up one of the bivalves and made off. I was satisfied that it was too hard a nut for him to crack. I was watching him with my field glass. He flew to a height of thirty feet and dropped the clam on the beach. Instantly, with a turn of the wing, he shot to the ground after it. Picking it up again, he spread his wings and swung upward, like a kite, against the wind. He did not let it fall by accident, for he did the same trick fifteen times, until it evidently struck a rock and cracked; then he planted one foot on the mollusk and tore out the meat. How did he learn the trick?

When a bird can crack a hard nut by using his wings and wits, he is hardly to be put in the class of the foolish and the stupid.

To go back to an earlier day—When the Jutes and Angles and Saxons moved from the north of Germany over to the coast of Britain, during the primitive years of hunting and fishing together, their various languages were gradually moulded into the Anglo-Saxon. One might easily picture several furwrapped, bare-legged fishermen bringing in their catch and cutting up their fish. A flock of gulls hovered around, to pick up the bits that were thrown away. The village wag may have noticed that the birds gobbled every piece that was dropped, and he may have jumped to the conclusion that these birds were simple-minded, easily fooled, and would swallow a rock as quickly as a chunk of fish. One of the slang-users of the tribe may have called a slower-minded companion a ‘gull.’ At least, it seems the word was bandied about; and when the wise ones were gathering the scattered words into a vocabulary, they perhaps included this word in order to be up-to-date.

Along came William Shakespeare, and other writers who were in need of words, and ‘gull’ came to be another word for ‘dupe,’ and ‘gullible’ came to be a synonym of ‘stupid’ and ‘foolish.’ In order to be complete, when Noah Webster was making his dictionary, he took in these words; yet he may never have known how close he came to nature-faking.

I have watched with notebook and camera, and have studied the home habits of many varieties of birds, but I have never seen any species that shows more indication of gray matter, or is more versatile, than the gull.

II

During the summer of 1903, we spent five days and nights on the ledges of one of the sea rocks a mile off the Oregon coast. Here was a great pile of basalt jutting three hundred feet out of the water, like a huge haystack — one of those ancient centres of birdpopulation which still exist as they were before Columbus thought of sailing west. In the niches far up the side of the rock, and on top, the western gulls make their nests and rear their young. Black cormorants stand at rigid attention all along the top of the rock, and the colonies of California murres, in white waistcoats, crowd every available sticking-place, clear to the top of this sea-bird skyscraper.

A murre is a penguin-looking bird, with the legs clear at the end of the body, which, like the propellers of a boat, are valuable in the water, but not good for walking on the land. His wings are better developed than the penguin’s. He is a fast flyer and a rapid diver. He flies under water, using both wings and webbed feet in the pursuit of fish. When he returns from fishing, he sweeps in on swift wings, curving upward toward the twelfth story. When about twenty feet from home, he drops his legs and back-paddles as awkwardly as a man who has slipped on a banana peel. He lands sprawled out on the rock.

The murre is a tenement-dweller, crowding every shelf, and literally living between breathing walls. All he asks in the way of a home is a standingspot on a ledge. There is no sign of a nest, not even a blade of grass or a stick to keep the eggs from rolling away. There is never more than one egg to a family. One is all a murre can care for. It is all she can tuck under her leg. It is larger than a turkey’s egg, although a murre is only about one fourth the size of the big game bird. The shape of the egg is like a top; so, if it starts rolling toward the sea, it goes about six or eight inches, swings around on its own axis, and comes to a standstill. Where a hundred murres live on a narrow, sloping rock-ledge, about two by twelve feet, the coming and going in the murre village might have rolled all the eggs into the sea, if the future of murre children had not been safeguarded in this way.

In a colony of a thousand murre eggs, I saw no two colored exactly alike. The combined effect was like a whole spring flower-garden of tints. They varied from pure white to washes of gray and brown and different shades of blue. On this background were elaborate patterns of all sizes and shapes, spots and lines of brown, gray, and velvety-black; sometimes thicker on the large end, sometimes on the small end. Some were daubed as with a brush, others scratched from end to end as with a pen, and finished off with wild flourishes and scrawls. The variety in color really served like the number on the door of a house, so that one murre could tell her own eggs from her neighbor’s.

While the murre has a slow way of populating the rocks, Mother Nature did her best for this bird. She made the shell of a murre’s egg so tough that a gull cannot poke his nose into it. A murre is no match for a gull, who occasionally sees a murre’s egg roll over the edge and drop to the rocks below. This means dinner to the gull. I sat on the ledge one day watching some murres fifteen feet away. They were scared by the falling of a rock loosed by the movements of some birds on the ledge above. As several murres left, I saw a gull light and deliberately give one of the top-shaped eggs a shove with his bill. It rolled about nine inches, but stopped. The gull followed, nosing it along until it cleared the edge and fell to the rocks below. He feasted on scrambled egg. As I looked at him, it occurred to me that he was not made of the stuff that was easily taken in, but was able to collect his experiences in terms of bread and butter. He could live by his wits.

Mother Nature may have figured on giving a murre protection in rearing his progeny, but she did not count on the mental aptitude of this other webfooted bird, with the blue-gray coat and snow-white head. A gull knows well enough that he cannot penetrate a murre’s egg with a peck; but several times I saw one pick up a murre’s egg, which was a very large mouthful, fly off to a quiet place just above the rocks, and let the tough-shelled nut drop.

The life of the murre is always on the fighting line. He has a long, sharp bill, and can give a powerful thrust which the gull has respect for. So, if undisturbed, a murre can hold his own, because the egg, or newly hatched young, is never left without a guard: either the male or the female is always at home, night or day. Occasionally, if gulls are hard-put for a meal, two or more will join together in bluffing a murre by simultaneous attacks from front and rear, and thus get a meal.

If there is anything a gull likes better than a fresh murre egg, it is one that is just ready to hatch, or a tender murre chick. Once, when an old murre was a little negligent, I saw a gull grab a baby murre by the wing and swing out over the sea. The youngster kicked with such vigor that the captor let him drop. When he hit the water with a splash, the gull was there about a second later. Although but a few days out of the egg, the little murre knew his danger, for he dove. The gull calmly floated on the surface till the little fellow came up; then he was after him. The murre’s diving endurance played out, and the gull grabbed him, and like a terrier after a rat, gave a few vigorous shakes and swallowed him.

Some birds profiteer at the expense of others. I once saw a gull get a meal in dealing with a half-grown cormorant, the menu being choice ‘seconds.’ The young cormorant had just finished a good fish-dinner, when the gull swooped down upon him, pecking and bullying, until he was mighty glad to deliver up the mess of pottage to his tormentor. The murres and cormorants are both good steady-going, hard-working fishermen. They are experts in their line.

When it comes right down to business, the gull always has an eye single to the getting of an easy living — as single as some people have. He does not necessarily have to trade with murres and cormorants. Along the southern California coast the gulls, that migrate south to enjoy the winter with the rest of the tourist population, move cheerily along the lines of least resistance. If you will notice, you will see that there are generally one or more gulls following along with the brown pelicans, to watch them fish. A pelican is a big heavy bird, clumsy in shape, with a bill twelve inches long, with a pendulous elastic pouch attached to the under part. When not in motion, the pelican sits with his chin resting on his chest, as solemn as an old judge. All of which would lead you to believe that the concentrated bird-wisdom of the ages was centred in his brain.

Here again, appearances are deceptive. The pelican is as expert as the kingfisher at diving. From a height of thirty feet, he drops like a plummet into a school of small fish, and he backs up to the surface with his pouch full of fish and water. At this stage, he is in a helpless condition, because of the weight of water in his elastic pouch. As he stretches his neck and draws his bill up for the water to run out, the nimble gulls poke their noses into his fish-bag and get a meal before the slow pelican can retaliate. Thus, when a pelican deals with a gull, he belongs to the same old class of those who hold the sack while someone else enjoys the contents.

III

I do not want to be led off into a discussion as to whether it is right for one who has wits to live at the expense of one who is slow and industrious. Mother Nature equipped each of her birds for a special work. She gave the hummingbird a long bill, to suck honey from the flower-cups. She gave the woodpecker a chisel-shaped beak, to bore into the bark for insects. She gave the wise-looking pelican a dip-net, to do business with a school of sardines. But when she sent the gull out, he soon learned by experience, as he flew over the sea and looked down at a school of fish, that, no matter how quickly he dropped to the surface, the members of the finny tribe were always about one one-hundredth of a second quicker, and had turned tail to deep water. A gull has n’t the weight to reach more than a few inches below the surface. Lacking the physical equipment, and unable to go on the principle that might makes right, he used his wits; and the bird-world, like the human world, learned to pay tribute to brains.

It seems to me that a gull is more nearly at the head of the class than any other bird, when it comes to intelligence. Consider how versatile he is. Most people think of a gull as a seabird. Some species do live along the seashore, nesting on the off-shore rocks. Others nest entirely on the inland lakes through the northern part of our country. Although a gull has webbed feet, and can hunt his living like other waterfowl, yet he can compete with a robin or flycatcher and skirmish about the fields, or he can gather in a harvest of insects on the sagebrush desert.

Some people think these qualities, which tend to show a larger amount of intelligence in the gull than in some other birds, may be the result of racial characteristics. Gulls are gregarious in nature, nesting in colonies and living in flocks the year around.

Birds—like people—that live solitary lives do not develop their wits, however much they develop physically. The kingfisher, for instance, is a sort of hermit and, reptile-like, he still makes his nest in a hole in a bank. He is decidedly a specialist. Everything is forfeited to furnish him a big head, a spear-pointed bill, and a pair of strong wings to give his arrow-shaped body a good start when he dives for fish. He is top-heavy in appearance. His tiny feet are deformed and hardly large enough to support him. He knows nothing except how to dive for fish, and he never will know anything more. He lives a solitary life, while a gull lives in a colony. Perhaps life among his fellows and among other birds has had something to do with developing a gull’s wits, and putting him on a higher plane of intelligence.

The training that a gull chick has, from the time he emerges from the egg till he flies with his own wings, leads me to believe that he is started out in life with a discipline which lasts all through his varied career.

While hiding in the blind with my camera, in a gull colony on Malheur Lake in southeastern Oregon, there were hundreds of old gulls nesting two or three feet apart. Life was not communal. In a group of barnyard fowls, an old hen does n’t care a whit whether she sits on one nest or the other. Often she will mother a neighbor’s chicks as quickly as her own. Here each gull had its own nest-spot and eggs, and there was no overlapping with the neighbors. Several times I saw a young gull, either from wanderlust or because he was afraid of the blind, scamper away from his own nest. He was pounced upon by his parents, and driven back; or he was severely beaten by the neighbors, whose yards he invaded. I have at times seen a young gull with its head bleeding, almost pecked to death, because it strayed from home or got lost in a mix-up. I have often seen an old gull beat her nestlings unmercifully, for the unpardonable crime of straying from the family hearth. The youngster soon learns the lesson of obedience. If he does n’t learn from his beating, he is starved until he returns to the home spot where the meals are passed out by the parents.

IV

While two species of gulls—like the California and ring-billed, which nest in the same colony on the inland lakes, or the glaucous-winged and western gulls, which live together on the sea rocks — are alike in size and color, much as an Englishman would resemble a Frenchman, yet they do not interbreed. There is a steadfastness of character and trueness to species. If this were not so, we should have chaos, not only in bird character, but in the world of natural history.

There are nearly fifty known species of gulls, and every fall about a dozen different kinds gather along our coastlines. Coming from the inland lakes and from the stormbound sea rocks, this white-winged fleet sails into the rivers and bays, to winter about the wharf-lined waterfront. These are the birds of various color that some of our unthinking people call ‘gulls.

When food becomes scarce in one place, it does n’t take the gull long to find new fields. It is a time-honored custom of the blackbirds to follow the farmer’s plough in the springtime, and pick up a living in angleworms. From southern California to Washington, I have often seen the gulls fly inland, many miles away from water, and gather in a line behind the plough; for they have learned that a menu of angleworms is as palatable as a meal of fish. They can beat the blackbirds at their own game.

In Los Angeles, Portland, and Seattle, I have seen them in and about the cities, hunting for scraps of bread and meat in the back yards of residences. When it comes to a rub, a gull can even compete with an English sparrow, who, in the matter of holding his own, has been called a ‘ rat of the air.’ It is not an uncommon sight to see a gull perched on the top of a flagpole, impersonating our picture of the American eagle, or sitting on the cornice of a modern skyscraper. However, toward nighttime, true to their webbed toes, the scattered members of the white-winged fleet always sail back to the river or ocean.

From an economic standpoint, the gull might have been adopted as our national emblem, instead of the widewinged and fierce-looking eagle. There is nothing that will kill a person or a bird in the public eye like ridicule. If it had not been for the old town wag who started the idea that this bird was simple-minded and easily taken in, who knows but he might be our national bird representative on sea and land? Perhaps he was robbed of his birthright.

I do not mention these things because I expect the American eagle to be replaced. I have great respect for him. If I did advocate this, someone would say that the gull has not a fierce countenance like an eagle; yet he is just like an eagle in one way: he will fight when cornered. He knows a great deal more than an eagle about the business of hunting his living. He lives a simple, easy life, working his wits instead of going entirely on his physical make-up—which might look as if he really represented the American people better than the eagle.

There is another very important fact that must not be overlooked. In Alaska, where the American eagles have been most abundant, the salmoncanners, after years of unrestricted fishing, saw their business decreasing. So the blame was put on the eagle, because, occasionally, one of these big birds was seen with a dead salmon. The Alaska lawmakers put a bounty of fifty cents on each eagle. Ten or twelve thousand of these great birds have been killed, and the slaughter is still on. At this rate, the renowned American bird of freedom will be extinct in a few years. Who wants to be represented by a defunct species?

The more I think of it, the more I am led to believe that the gull may yet come into his own as the emblem of America. Of course, he will have to live down the slander and ignominy thrust upon him by gossip-mongers.

In fear that Alaska lawmakers may introduce a bill to replace the American eagle with the gull, I might suggest that they first pass a resolution to investigate who is destroying the salmon crop of Alaska. This may clear the American eagle, and save him before he reaches the point of final disappearance.

On the other hand, if our people in idle indifference see the last American eagle brought, to earth, they will raise little objection to the lowly gull perched above the Stars and Stripes. He is already a bird sacred in the history of Utah. On October 1, 1913, a tall marble shaft was dedicated to the memory of this bird, which saved the early Mormon settlers from famine. On the top of a granite column more than fifteen feet high is a great ball, upon which two gulls of gilded bronze are just alighting. On the sides of the square-base pedestal are four historical bronze plaques in high relief. The north tablet contains the dedication: ‘Seagull Monument, erected in grateful remembrance of the mercy of God to the Mormon pioneers.’ The east tablet shows the arrival of the pioneers; the south indicates despair, hope and the arrival of the gulls; and the west, the harvest.

The incident so strikingly commemorated happened in the summer of 1848, during a great plague of ‘crickets’ (locusts or grasshoppers), when the gulls came in great flocks to the settlers’ fields and successfully checked the insect pests that were destroying the crops. The birds not only ate what they needed for food, but they gorged themselves again and again, as if possessed with the idea of ridding the fields of their scourge.

President Smith of the Mormon Church said, among other things, at the dedication: —

‘I am only relating what I saw. Whenever the gulls had been filled to capacity, they would fly to the banks of the creek and there disgorge the dead pests, which lay along the stream in piles, many of which were as large as my fist. These piles literally covered the banks of the creek. After the crickets had been so nearly destroyed that they began to shelter themselves wherever they could from the attacks of the gulls, the birds became so tame that they followed under our wagons as we drove along, into our yards, and under every shelter where the crickets sought protection from them. With the help of the Lord, we were able to reap, that fall, a fairly good harvest.’

Around Malheur, Lower Klamath, and other lakes in Oregon and California, I have often seen the gulls sailing out over the fields and sagebrush plains. They hunt like little falcons, hovering over and dropping down to pick up grasshoppers. During the breeding season, this is the food-supply carried to their chicks, which live out on the floating tule-islands.

When the farmers began storing water, and leading it out in ditches to irrigate their alfalfa and beet fields, the gulls were interested spectators. As the water seeped into the soil, it drove out field mice, they were so abundant. The gulls soon learned to follow the course of the water, and became a most important economic factor by pouncing down and making their meals on these pests of the field, which eat the profits of the farm.

These are land-loving habits of the gull, which have been acquired. A gull really looks more at home following the steamers that ply the coast waters. He will sail along the stern of a steamer for days, because he knows that at least three times, between sun-up and sun-down, he will get a choice dish of seconds from the cook. There seem to be reliable records of gulls following the same vessel from the Irish coast to New York, a distance of 2560 miles.

Did you ever watch a gull sail at the side of a ship, and apparently make headway straight in the teeth of the wind without moving his wings? He is an expert in the art of aerial navigation. He just seems to float along on outstretched pinions. It is a difficult feat. A small bird cannot do it. A sparrowhawk docs it with rapid beating of wings. A gull seems to hang perfectly still; yet a close observer can see that there is hardly an instant when the wings and tail are not adjusted to meet the different air-currents, which are never the same at two different moments. He is a master of the air. A sailboat can only tack against the wind. Yet, by the perfect adjustment of his body, a gull, without a single flap of the wing, makes headway in the teeth of the gale. I saw one retain perfect poise, and at the same time reach forward with his foot and scratch his ear.

While gulls are abundant in every section of our coast line, when an amateur starts out to make the acquaintance of different members of the family, he takes on a problem that he can master only in a partial way, after long study and observation. At first sight, he recognizes the bird of snow-white breast and head, and delicate pearlgray back. At the same time, he also sees the motley array of gulls of the same size, which are partly gray and partly white, and others of mottled gray plumage without a touch of white. These he might take to be entirely different gulls, yet they may all be of the same species, but of different ages.

When a gull chick passes out of his mottled downy stage, he is a plain gray color all over. This coat lasts him the first year. The second year, as he grows older, the white feathers begin to appear on his head, body, and tail. He is passing out of his childhood. During the third and fourth years, he attains the white head of maturity, the white on the breast and tail, with a touch of black on the wings, and the delicate beautiful coat of gullhood. This applies to the herring gull of the Atlantic, the western, California, and ring-billed gulls of the Pacific. The laughing gull of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, the Franklin gull of the interior, and the Bonaparte and Sabine gulls of the far north, all have the jet-black head instead of the white. Their white breasts are flushed with pink, and their bodies mantled with delicate gray.

In our world of feathered beings, no other family of birds can take the place of the gull. He is a tireless hunter, patrolling our rivers, bays, and shorelines for scraps of waste food. He adds the right touch of wild life to the landscape. His association with other birds has made him a shrewd provider. His companionship with people has made him a keen observer, always at hand for a crust of bread, but quick to forget the thoughtless fellow who tosses him a cigar-stub or an orange-peel. Those who criticize the gull for the acts we have recorded toward other birds should not measure him according to human standards, for this implies mental and moral endowments equal to man. From an economic standpoint in relation to man, he is a good citizen.

The qualities of being foolish, stupid, or easily taken-in may apply to some people, yet it can hardly be said that a gull is a gullible bird. Not long ago, after a night of hard rain, the paved streets were covered with angleworms. Two of the neighbors really thought that the worms had rained down from heaven. It is safe to say such an idea never entered the heads of the gulls, skimming along those city pavements and picking up a meal of the worms, which had wiggled out of the saturated ground.