6/2 THE BIRDS OF YORKSHIRE. 



centre of the Common ; in 1880 they were fairly abundant, 

 but in 1881 extensive improvements were carried out, which 

 broke up the land, although the nesting pond was not directly 

 affected ; in that year about twenty nests were built and 

 some young were reared, though the birds seemed to resent 

 the interference with their solitude, and in the following year 

 only three or four pairs appeared. Since then they have 

 nested irregularly ; in 1898 they did not lay eggs, and in 

 one or two seasons only five or six pairs succeeded in building. 

 They are, however, protected by Lord Wenlock's keepers, 

 and in 1900 about fifty pairs brought off their young ; in 

 1901, strange to relate, only very few appeared, yet in 1902 

 some twenty-five pairs nested. This species, according to 

 Allis, bred on Goole and Thorne moor before 1844, and con- 

 tinued to do so in different parts of that district until 1895 ; 

 here, again, interference with its nesting haunts has caused 

 the desertion of the place ; Mr. T. Bunker says eighty eggs 

 were taken by one person in 1880. There is no doubt there 

 were colonies of these Gulls in the " Carrs " of east Yorkshire 

 before they were drained ; every spring a few birds revisit 

 the scene of their former homes, and often remain until the 

 nesting season. 



In the north-west of the county, near the Lancashire border, 

 an attempt was made, about the year i860, to form a Gullery ; 

 several birds built on the edge of a tarn on Newton fell, their 

 efforts, however, were frustrated by robbery of the eggs by 

 farm-hands, and the birds left. Other attempts at nesting, 

 made in 1881-2 in the Aire Valley outside Leeds, were rendered 

 futile by the eggs being stolen as soon as they were laid ; 

 these birds have lately become very numerous in the upper 

 reaches of the Aire since the formation of so many sewage 

 farms between Skipton and Bingley. Between 1893 and 

 1903 a considerable number bred on Keighley Moor Dam ; 

 on one occasion twenty-three nests were counted, but the 

 eggs were all taken and the birds abandoned the place. A 

 statement recording the discovery of an unfledged young one, 

 on 27th July 1900, on Clough Hey Reservoir, Keighley moor, 

 appears in the Naturalist (1900, p. 304), and in the year 1904 



