70 BIRD-LIFE OP THE BORDERS 



Hardly two eggs are alike, even in the same nest. 

 They display every shade of green, blue, and brown ; 

 some dark and heavily blotched, others pale and almost 

 spotless : and the variation even extends to shape. The 

 regular complement of eggs numbers three ; but even 

 when "chipping" (on May 18th), there were nests that 

 only contained two, or sometimes a single egg. By 

 June, the young are old enough to creep away among 

 the heather, and pretty little objects they are — warm 

 yellowish-brown in colour, spotted with black, with large 

 eyes, full and dark ; their beaks and legs pinkish, the 

 former tipped, the latter shaded, dusky. When fledged, 

 the young gulls are prettily variegated with warm 

 browns, in pleasing contrast w r ith the pale French-grey 

 and snowy whiteness of the rest of their plumage. 

 Hard by, on an islet, was a mallard's nest, while two 

 pairs of teal bred on dry tussocks in an adjoining flowe. 

 Yet withal, no sign of spring can yet be detected out 

 here, save among the birds. Not a shoot of grass or 

 fern has yet appeared ; the heather is brown and lifeless 

 — the plant-world has not yet awakened from its winter's 

 sleep. 



. Jackdaws are persistent raiders of these gulleries. 

 Their own homes may be miles away ; yet here they are, 

 ever in evidence and ever on the look-out for a chance to 

 plunder. They are, too, masters of the situation, and 

 one sees young gulls lying dead with a sharp beak-thrust 

 through their soft stomachs. We intervened to vary 

 Nature's balance, and by setting traps baited with eggs, 

 materially reduced the numbers of the marauders and 

 scared the rest. It is noteworthy that not a gull came 

 near the traps, showing that this small species is innocent 

 of egg-stealing. Its food consists largely of worms, slugs, 



