The "DESCRIPTION" from the Trad. Ballad Index is confused and confusing:
DESCRIPTION: The singer reports, "I take no books, nor I read no papers, I have no money to spend or lose." He reads other people's newspapers, sets his dogs on orphans, and has no company but the gulls he whistles to, hence the name "the Gull Decoy."
Apparently 'The singer' above refers to the 'speaker' or the first-person narrator of the song.
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sj