176 The Irish Nahiralist. [July, 



left the lake altogether and shifted their quarters to Rath- 

 rouyeen, where they now may be seen in thousands. When I first 

 visited Rathrouyeen, over thirty years ago, there were probably 

 not more than between two and three hundred pairs of gulls 

 breeding, chiefly on the small island, where I counted close 

 on 200 nests, while perhaps there were 30 to 50 nests amongst 

 the reeds and rushes about the lake. But now they have over- 

 flowed so much that the nests are built everywhere amongst 

 the reed-beds and BuUrushes, and all round the margin of 

 the lake on the tussocks of coarse grass and bunches of 

 rushes ; and when any one approaches the shore of the lake 

 the noise of the screaming thousands is deafening. There is 

 also a small colony breeding on a low gravelly island in I^ough 

 Conn near Errew Abbey and Enniscoe. 



These gulls are the first to suffer from a hard winter and a 

 long-continued frost. In 1894 they suffered more than in any 

 winter that I can remember, and they were so reduced that 

 only a mere tithe of their numbers assembled at their breeding- 

 haunt the following spring. During the severe frost of that 

 winter the unfortunate birds were so hard-pressed for food 

 that they came into the farmyards to feed with the pigs and 

 the poultry ; large numbers came into my poultry-yard and 

 piggery feeding on the potatoes and turnips. I fed them ever}- 

 day while the frost lasted, but each morning their numbers 

 lessened by death ; one day over a dozen came into the 

 kitchen, and were so tamed by hunger as to feed close round 

 the fire and almost to snatch the food out of the hands of the 

 girl who was feeding them. They even came into the town 

 of Ballina, feeding in the streets and yards of the houses. 



The G1.AUCOUS and Icki^and Gui.i.s {Larus glaucus and Z. 

 /^2/c^/>/<?r//^), being irregular winter visitors, are only occasionally 

 seen, and as I have given an account of those coming under 

 my notice in the Irish Naturalist for October, 1892, there is 

 no need of my now repeating the information given in that 

 number. 





