Show of Doors in the West fetches of Natural History in the Rocky Mountain Plateau Edited by J. H. Professor of Nature Study in the University of Utah The the Cricket and the THE BIRD OF here is I any creature than the sea most respected bird of air or on or HL upon the rocks of the islands whether resting the gull picture of graceful poise or But our gull is also a f comical Even the so-st could hardly fail to laugh Us method of remonstrating our inspection of its i on Bird After flying e our heads and calling out leir strong by thousands in t a babel of bird voices round of many some ie gulls would descend to the s. after a few shrieks warning us to each would throw this head and scream for possibly half a spectacle we M as long and heartily as H is there anything more than the graceful I of the gulls from mid-air following your they md to pick up the food you out into the Or fly in single file low f the to their rookery f Or when they jf graceful vessels on the Jas you bathe at of motion is ever graceful flight and the sea is in their strong and r neighborly also t ley are Their nests in the 01 Island can not be j J. than a foot I doubt that you Jj a a foot-rule anywhere nests without the one of Si they can of the u those mere i fluffy balls of yellowish down that run about and get all mixed are their We could avoid stepping on the little ones when we were there in For we perceived that it was a wise nestling there that knew its own and must have been the parents that knew their own offspring in this wonderful And think how faithfully the old birds feed the nestlings During the first few the I Flock of Young Pelicans on Bird Island in the Great Salt Photograph by Fred J. University of newly hatched young can take only the partially digested which the parents regurgitate from their own Afterwards they are fed on and I suspect that gulls from the heaps of fish piled up there by the much of what their own young As a Friend of The gulls are expert fishermen and will schools of fish in rivers until a the water to from fish leaps then with a rapid catch an seize the fish will dart a gull Culls have insatiate appetites and fish thrown up to do not object left lying on the wave or by a They banks of animal all sorts of up useful in keep- and are thus very ing the shores clean of animal matter that would catch many insects on the on the and the plowman's The is a most useful as well as a most interesting Though a and lacking in what is called bird devoid also of architectural and a great glutton this splendid which still breeds about the deserves io be protected and the law should be so changed as to safeguard the one remaining rookery here that it continues to use as a summer home and breeding Admired by Strong Quite apart from its practical value to farms of the the gull has a certain sentimental worth to those who like the It was no less an aur than John who declared that strong and susceptible characters the music of nature is not confined sweet also that wild crooning of the repeated-by the swirling sharp and rising and falling like the wind in a as they circle above the beach or dip to the dash of the waves are much welcome in certain moods than any and all mere bird in keeping as they are with the shaggy and untamed features of ocean and When I first visited Bird queer mere hol lows were with eggs or with the young like little balls of yellowish rah so thick could Scarcely stepping on some of On a recent July the birds were mostly as were also the herons and The changes in the plumage of the gulls at first while in the then grayish brown till full grown and able to then changing to pearl and black for the second year presented an interesting phase of bird once is not readily Protected by Who could sq forget himself as to use his shotgun to stay the flight of that wing and dim luster of that beaming The dead left with soiled plumage to on the the place of graceful white as the breasted the billows of the-briny sea this sort of in the case of the has been rightly forbidden by least one bird in thus far received fair and considerate treatment at the hands of its human This is the This bird is protected both by law and by the sentiment of the it become quite tame and What the Sea Gulls An enemy of all large the gull distinguished pioneer clays by devouring the hideous large that crawled from the mountains iii countless numbers and causing such destruction that seemed In this sea gulls coast appeared in numbers destroyed the said that the birds would gorge to then up insects and proceed again to cat more of hopping In gratitude for visit from these in vast and their obliging method of 1 he the legislature that these birds nit be harmed man the bird's have had practical immunity from law serving as a partial protection to these friends of the Battling With the In discussing the Franklin gull with a black described below Vernon Bailey speaks of their presence in Immense flocks over the northern plains and prairie and notes their great economic since they live on grasshoppers and other destructive Then he Utah their services are so well appreciated that Brigham Young used to offer up prayers that they be sent to destroy the grasshoppers infested the One often sees flocks of fifty to five hundred catching grasshoppers on the diving and till at a distance the white flock suggests a wild flurry of When the meal is the birds to scatter out among the drift on lazy wings over the or float idly on the surface of the The Mountain In all it was the California gull that served the Pioneers so faithfully and and it was the mountain not the were devoured by the gulls in unusual manner above Casual observation here in summer will serve to the gulls with the work of grasshopper so that in the popular the gulls destroyed the grasshoppers on the memorable occasion to which reference has been This is an and it may be as well to up the matter in this It was the mountain or brown cricket that from the hills into the valleys in the This cricket is of the grasshopper it jumps and but does not The jumping comprise all those with the long hind 1 legs fitted for The common the long-horned meadow and the all belong to this and the deep brown mountain crickets are included among the The Common The short-horns include all of our common The Rocky Mountain the plague of the early has dis according to with the exception of a small swarm in one in Wyoming and another in But we still have several that closely this The the the and the creamy winged being the best The one last named is said to be very similar to the grasshopper in Biblical times caused the Egyptian plague of None of the kinds still common here seem to have the migratory habit of the Rocky Mountain nor are they as that The large insect is one of the Praying a member of the Grasshopper rather abundant in in the Southern it does not occur The long slender insect is another of the southern called the Walking The Mountain Cricket is shown below at the left and the Cockroach at Drawn by pupils of the State Normal Training 1 cies When an insect can eat every kind of and when it will fly far to find it is the most dangerous to man's interests and constitutes a This was the case with the now almost extinct that was the scourge of the When an insect is limited as to its food it can scarcely multiply without owing to the limitation of its food But if it is it in the dry and congenial summers of the semi-arid multiply until it can supply enough with untold billions in to over-run the entire sweeping it bare of as they wherever they chance to The Scourge of the During the years the Rocky Mountain locust swarmed eastward over and several neighboring causing a direct loss in agricultural produce of in addition to an indirect loss by the stoppage of business and other which might have aggregated as much In Utah the losses were proportional to those farther but the gulls did not succeed in clearing up the locusts as they had formerly done with the Grasshoppers are mostly large with mouth-parts formed for with young more or less closely resembling the save for the lack of Their name is sufficient indication of their they live normally m and their hind are enlarged for one knows them so well ther description is species are capable tended flight for hundreds miles with intermissions of slops for At such tS they occur in and soS times darken the face of the 3 or at night of the 3 This condition actually K on one in the early year not locate at this wS the Tenth ward people outing to Calder's farm The then a remembers well this te visitation of the Rocky It was a d that living blade of grass or and at the that day the fields looked d they had been swept by Ways and Life All of our native species 3 from the Rocky Mountain in that they never migrated are not numerous enough toj come serious jH- Grasshoppers may be claB in regard to their habits migratory and latter group are our which breed anuB their entire lives in or place the eggs from they species enormous when come too for supply of the region c they Ew most troublesome in ariy semi-desert and 1 numbers are subject to vany according to climatic and Dry regions ble to- the visitation of a swarm at any time of and they are the most dread because of the their when they large and even able portions of FM reason omitting other and sufficient Utah and all the states should protect all the native the birds are practically means of preventing the cation of insect pests in and areas that cm tute so large a proportion o for ex- Our il ie lay their eggS in August arll September in hardest can The female the earth and con-wL 5 into pear-shaped pouches an inch in She the pouch with a waterproof IB fills it with eggs and lE covers the pouch with a Jig of cement and a thin layer Thus deftly only sharp eyes of birds and of insects can find the Besides the insects help to destroy Carnivorous the egg pouch and the eggs some insects eggs beside the grassier so that their young upon the eggs or the V hoppers still very lay eggs within the eggs grasshopper and destroy so that of our only two kinds in have unduly Native account of the true will be given in an-iB but three of our species will be men- like others the Rocky Mountain in the direction of any dis- anc ave een trapped by grasshopper ma- called a little higher when dis-jH and have been eradicated trapped in a simple ap-jp the locust is our orth American found practically evil It is one of the small-B and where it is not Ejection by natural ene-may become a decided-ince u cultivated It exhibits the migratory bt sometimes gathers and moves in drifting with the these species are dis-jS having short term- j ong-horned Long-Horned The long-horned grasshoppers are distinguished by horns longer than their and by long curved Three groups of them are well known in the Of the shield backs are the only long-horns that are specially They include the mountain crickets of pioneer These were a serious men- ace to the crops of the first until destroyed by the This species is variously known as the Idaho the Mormon the Colorado It is over an inch It does not but hops in search of the rear rows regularly jumping over the heads of the first They have in vast and are still to Le found in the western parts of the Their abortive wings resemble whence the name of the group the Meadow grasshoppers are another group of They are and mostly They occur in swamps and laying their eggs in the stems of rushes and other aquatic Our Hideous We on our a creature that unnecessarily frightens many The yellow and black sand crickets are grasshoppers rather than They can only and despite their formidable they are well-nigh They are often and most mistakenly called but they have no Their strong and sharp might pierce the skin of one's The massive head contains the muscles necessary to work these These feed on other insects and on this account are no doubt Five Species in Great According to there are five species of gulls that breed in or at least in From the bird the great the descriptions derive books we only the most that follow since numerous species with the is the one that is more familiar to Western peo- or less California gull is the most breeding principally upon Hat or Bird island in the This is the one that endeared itself to the pioneers and earned the gratitude of entire communities by destroying the black crickets that in early times crept in numbers from the mountains and destroyed the This gull has a mantle of clear bluish the wings largely black and tipped with the bill is with a red and black spot near the end of the lower The young are coarsely spotted and mottled with gray and The Franklin gull has a bright red black darkly slaty under parts deeply tinted with rose The Bonaparte has a black head and orange red pearl-gray and white The ring-billed gull has a greenish yellow bill crossed by a black and tipped with The sabine is rarely seen Comparative freedom from molestation has rendered the gulls of Utah tame and They visit the towns without much fear and pick up any food cast from the In the spring they like to follow the plow and gorge themselves with insects and their At all times they play a useful devouring an incredible quantity of sand the large black cricket all of these being really grasshoppers rather than true are these birds protected by The providential part they took in pioneer days makes an interesting chapter of Utah and has been told by many writers What is the a wealthy toper and a skilful One turns his gold into the 0 k tarns his quartz into What sea would a man most like to be in on a wet dri Why is a shoemaker like a true Because he is faithful to the |