192 The Irish Naturalist. 



BIRDS. 



Notes on Black-headed Culls.— The following notes arc from 

 observations which I made at Lough INIask, Co. INJ.ayo, and Gull Island, 

 Gartan Lake, Co. Donegal. — The birds all seem to begin to lay at the one 

 time— once an o.^^ is laid either the cock or hen is on the nest so that 

 the eggs come out very irregularly ; they lay from three to five eggs, 

 generally three or four, but in a few nests there may be six. When the 

 chicks are all out they stop for about a week at the "gullery " and then 

 all suddenly disappear. The young chicks do not seem to be alile to 

 swim, as some that fell off the island at Gartan were drowned. One year 

 the gamekeeper at Toormakeedy robbed the regular gullery to get the 

 eggs to feed his Pheasants, and the Gulls moved to a rocky island and 

 crag in the small river that flows into the north end of Lough Mask, 

 here they could be easily watched as one could creep within 100 yards 

 of them. When the chicks were about ten days old they all suddenly 

 left. To-day when passing the gullery was alive, the next day there was 

 scarcely a Gull to be seen, and on going to the island one only found one 

 or two late clutches. After the gullery was deserted I found in the Co. 

 Mayo in the grass fields and in the Co. Donegal in the corn-field a 

 hovering pair of Black-heads that mobbed me if I came near as if their 

 young were about, but although I worked the ground very close I never 

 could find one ; but in two or three weeks the country would have nu- 

 merous small flocks consisting of two adults and three or four young 

 ones flying about feeding. I firmly believe the Gulls bring their young 

 to these fields, in fact it is all but positively proved — but how do they 

 do it .'' Do they carry them } The Mallard Duck does carry its young as 

 at Cragg, Lough Derg, Co., Clare ; so also does the Woodcock. Why there- 

 fore may not the Black-headed Gull do likewise ? The Terns and the 

 Grey-backed Gull keep about Lough Mask till their young are well able 

 to fly. G. H. KiNAHAN, Dublin. 



GEOLOGY. 



Exposed LlasatWhltepark Bay, North Antrim. —Heavy storms 

 in former 3'ears exposed small patches of Lias shales near the " Kitchen" 

 Middens" in this bay, but these were very soon covered up again, 

 sometimes ])y next few tides. The great storm of December 22nd last, 

 has left lasting traces of its fury here, and by removing many thousands 

 of tons of sand and shingle from the centre of the strand to the east end 

 has exposed the beds for a distance of over a thousand long b}' from 

 twenty to one hundred and fifty feet wide. All that now remains are 

 large masses of Chalk scattered over the Lias, There does not seem to 

 be even after four months exposure any sign of the sand covering up 

 again, but it might be well for geologists to take advantage of this fine 

 exposure while they may ; the beds are fairly fossiliferous, indeed it is 

 from here and from the little section a little higher up along the banks of 

 the stream that the Causeway guides get the majority of the specimens 

 of ammonites which they sell to tourists, and there are plenty of 

 indications that they are working there now. It would be impossible to 

 accurately describe the great change the storm made from the little port 

 at Eallintoy to this point. Almost all the shingle which lay in gullies 

 around the sea-stacks has been thrown up high beyond high water 

 mark ; at one place lying along a field 30 to 40 feet inside the low ditch. 



Even more destructive was the storm on the West Strand, near Golf 

 Hotel, Portrush, where the sand has been removed in immense quantities 

 all along the face of the dunes, exposing for almost a quarter of a mile 

 the well-known submerged peat beds there, which before the storm showed 

 only in a small patch about two feet below the Hotel ; it being now 

 from seven to eight feet high there the alternate layers of peaty matter 

 and sand can now be well examined, insects, &c., searched for. Roots and 

 branches of trees, evidently of the pine tribe, are common, and what 

 appeared to me like leaves or stems of Zostera .? or other esiuarine plant. 



R. We;i.ch, Belfast 



