iyo The Irish Naturalist. [July, 



of Bartragh Island for the destruction of rats. A plague of 

 rats destroying the j^oung rabbits in the burrows, thinned 

 them out considerably, and he, wishing to protect them, laid 

 poisoned meat and fish amongst the burrows on the sand-hills, 

 which the gulls (always on the look-out for dead or dying 

 Rabbits) greedily devoured, and the result was that numbers 

 of both Blackbacked and Herring Gulls were afterwards seen 

 lying dead in all directions about the island ; and for three or 

 four years after very few were seen about the sands. 



These great gulls always hovering over the sands and 

 shores, are like vultures, on the look-out for carrion, dead 

 fish, or weakly, or wounded birds. They become a perfect 

 nuisance to the wild-fowl shooter, alarming the birds he is 

 setting up to for a shot ; for the instant he lies down to his 

 gun, the gull, seeing him in such an unusual position, begins 

 to suspect danger, and flies over, and round the punt (out of 

 shot), looking down on the shooter, and giving out his harsh 

 alarm note, which immediately causes the ducks, or Widgeon 

 to be so much on the alert, that the fowler is unable to 

 approach within shooting distance. However, if he does 

 succeed in coming within range, and obtain a shot, any of 

 the dead or wounded birds that escape him are sure to be- 

 come the prey of the gulls. I well remember on one occasion 

 I knocked down fifteen Widgeon at a shot, while a *' dropper " 

 fel,! dead some distance off, and while I was picking up the 

 dead, and chasing the cripples, a Blackback, that had been 

 watching, and trying to alarm the flock of Widgeon, on 

 seeing the dropper fall, at once made for it, and settling down 

 on the water alongside began tearing the breast, and by the 

 time I had secured my dead and wounded birds, I reached 

 the dropper only in time to find a well-picked skeleton. 

 A dead, or wounded bird is seldom (in winter) found lying on 

 the shore for any time without being clean picked, and many 

 a rare specimen cast up by the sea is destroyed long before 

 the naturalist finds it. I was one day so fortunate as to 

 rescue two fine specimens of the Fulmar from being destroyed 

 by these gulls ; they had been thrown up by the surf on the 

 Bnniscrone sands, in so weak and exhausted a condition as to 

 be unable to stand, when I came on the gulls just attacking 

 them. 



