ich set more store by offal and carrion than by anything of
greater value, as to their exceedingly dirty habits. These unclean fowl
are in fact anything but welcome in harbours given over in summer to
smart yachting craft; and I remember how at Avalon, the port of Santa
Catalina Island (Cal.), various devices were employed to prevent them
alighting. Boats at their moorings were festooned with strips of
bunting, which apparently had the requisite effect, and the railings of
the club were protected by a formidable armour of nails. On the credit
side of their account with ourselves, seagulls are admittedly assiduous
scavengers, and their services in keeping little tidal harbours clear of
decaying fish which, if left to accumulate, would speedily breed a
pestilence, cannot well be overrated. The fishermen, though they rarely
molest them, do not always refer to the birds with the gratitude that
might be expected, yet they are still further in their debt, being often
apprised by their movement of the whereabouts of mackerel and pilchard
shoals, and, in thick weather, getting many a friendly warning of the
whereabouts of outlying rocks from the hoarse cries of the gulls that
have their haunts on these menaces to inshore navigation.

Seagulls are not commonly made pets of, the nearest approach to such
adoption being an occasional pinioned individual enjoying qualified
liberty in a backyard. Their want of popularity is easily understood,
since they lack the music of the canary and the mimicry of parrots. That
they are, however, capable of appreciating kindness has been
demonstrated by many anecdotes. The Rev. H. A. Macpherson used to tell a
story of how a young gull, found with a broken wing by the children of
some Milovaig crofters, was nursed back to health by them until it
eventually flew away. Not long after it had gone, one of the children
was lost on the hillside, and the gull, flying overhead, recognised one
of its old playmates and hovered so as to attract the attention of the
child. Then, on being called, the bird settled and roosted on the ground
beside him. An even more remarkable story is told of a gull taken from
the nest, on the coast of county Cork, and brought up by hand until, in
the following spring, it flew away in the company of some others of its
kind that passed over the garden in which it had its liberty. The bird's
owner reasonably concluded that he had seen the last of his protegee,
and great was his asto