and the Coolies are fond of them, and doubtless many a gross finds its way into the kitchens of the popular cheap restaurants, where, disguised in omelets and puddings, the quantity compensates for the lack of quality, and the palate of the rapid eater has not time to analyze the latter.  These are the eggs of the sea-gull, the gull that cries all day among the shipping in the harbor, follows the river boats until meal-time, and feeds on the bread that is cast upon the water.[2] How true it is that this bread returns to us after many days!

The gulls, during incubation, seek the solitude of the Farallones, a group of desolate and weather-beaten rocks that tower out of the fog about thirty miles distant from the mouth of the harbor of San Francisco.  Nothing can be more magnificently desolate than the aspect of these islands.  Scarcely a green blade finds root there.  They are haunted by sea-fowl of all feathers, and the boom of the breakers mingles with the bark of the seals that have colonized on one of the most inaccessible islands of the group.  It is here that myriads of sea-birds rear their young, here where the very cliffs tremble in the tempestuous sea and are drenched with bitter spray, and where ships have been cast into the frightful jaws of caverns and speedily ground into splinters.

The profit on sea-eggs has increased from year to year, and of late speculators have grown so venturesome that competition among egg-gatherers has resulted in an annual naval engagement, known to the press and the public as the egg-war.  If two companies of egg-pickers met, as was not unlikely, the contending factions fell upon one another with their ill-gotten spoils—­the islands are under the rule of the United States, and no one has legal right to take from them so much as one egg without license—­and the defeated party was sure to retire from the field under a heavy shower of shells, the contents of which, though not fatal, were at least effective.

I have before me the notes of a retired egg-picker; they record the brief experience of one who was interested in the last campaign, which, as it terminated the career of the egg-pirates, is not without historical interest.  I will at once introduce the historian, and let him tell his own tale.

“On Board the Schooner ’Sierra.’—­
  “Off the City Front. 
    “May 4, 1881.

“5 p.m.—­There are ten of us all told; most of us strangers to one another, but Tom and Jim, and Fred, that’s me, are pals, and have been these many months.  So we conclude to hang together, and make the most of an adventure perfectly new to each.  At our feet lie our traps; blankets, woolen shirts, heavy boots, with huge nails in the soles of them, tobacco in bulk, a few novels, a pack of cards, and a pocket flask, for the stomach’s sake.  A jolly crew, to be sure, and jollily we bade adieu to the fellows who had gathered in the dock to wish us God-speed.  Casting loose we swung into the