The wind and the cold have builded grim ramparts for the sunshine and the April rains to conquer.
(From the Author’s Etching)
“HERALDS OF THE STORM”
CHAPTER II
THE GULLS AND TERNS
THE gulls are a picturesque and interesting feature of dune life. These gray and white birds, while they do not entirely avoid human association, have few of the home-like charms of most of our feathered neighbors.
“Catfish John,” the old fisherman with whom I often talked about the birds and animals in the dune country, had very little use for them. He said that “they flopped ’round a whole lot, an’ seemed to keep a goin’.” He “didn’t never find no eggs, an’ they didn’t seem to set anywheres. They git away with the bait when its left out, an’ they seem mostly to live off’n fish an’ dead things they find on the beach an’ floatin’ round in the lake. They’ll tackle a mouthful big enough to choke a horse if they like the looks of it.”
He thought that “them that roosted out on the net stakes didn’t go to sleep entirely, or they’d slip off in the night.”
The gull has many charms for the ornithologist and the poet. He is valuable to the artist, as an accent in the sky, when he is on the wing, giving a thrill of life to the most desolate landscape.