gulls can waste no time on the young of
other gulls--their own keep them busy enough, the little greedies!

Again, Larie must have felt very wee and helpless whenever a big man
walked that way, shaking the ground with his heavy step and making a
dark shadow as he came. Then, oh, then, Larie was a baby, and hid near a
tuft of grass or between two stones, tucking his head out of sight, and
keeping quite still as an ostrich does, or,--yes,--as perhaps a shy
young human does, who hides his head in the folds of his mother's skirt
when a stranger asks him to shake hands.

But few men trod upon Larie's island-world, and no man came to do him
harm; for _the regulations under the Migratory-Bird Treaty Act prohibit
throughout the United States the killing of gulls at any time_. That
means that the laws of our country protect the gull, as of course you
will understand, though Larie knew nothing about the matter.

Yes, think of it! There was a law, made at Washington in the District of
Columbia, which helped take care of little downy Larie way off in the
north on a rocky island.

I said "helped take care of"; for no law, however good it may be, can
more than help make matters right. There has to be, besides, some sort
of policeman to stand by the law and see that it is obeyed.

So Larie, although he never knew that, either, had a policeman; and the
law and the policeman together kept him quite safe from the dangers
which not many years ago most threatened the gulls on our coast islands.
In those days, before there were gull-laws and gull-policemen, people
came to the nests and took their eggs, which are larger than hens' eggs
and good to eat; and people came, too, and killed these birds for their
feathers. Then it was that the beautiful stiff wing-feathers, which
should have been spread in flight, were worn upon the hats of women; and
the soft white breast-feathers, which should have been brooding brownish
eggs all spattered over with pretty marks, were stuffed into
feather-beds for people to sleep on.

Well it was for Larie that he lived when he did; for his third world was
a wonderful place and it was right that he should enjoy it in safety.
When Larie first left his nest and went out to walk, he stepped upon a
shelf of reddish rock, and the whole wall from which his shelf stuck out
was reddish rock, too. Beyond, the rocks were greenish, and beyond that
they were gray. Oh! the reddish and greenish and grayish rocks were
bea