826 BRITISH BIRDS 



nests are placed close together on the level ground. The three eggs 

 are of a light stone colour, spotted and blotched with blackish 

 brown and grey. The largest and best-known colony on the 

 British coasts is at the Fame Islands, and of that colony Seebohm 

 writes : * It is a wonderful sight on approaching an island to see 

 the green mass sprinkled aU over with large white-looking birds, 

 every one standing head to wind, like an innumerable army of white 

 weathercocks.' It is also fine to see and hear them, when a person 

 walks about among the nests, stooping occasionally to examine eggs 

 or handle the yellow, black- spotted chicks : the birds hover in a 

 dense cloud over his head, their deep, powerful cries mingling in 

 one mighty uproar, and, at short intervals, one or two birds dash 

 down out of the bird-cloud as if to strilce his head, and, missing it 

 by an inch or two, reascend to repeat the action. 



Common Gull. 



Larus canus. 



Bill greenish at the base, yellow at the tip ; legs and feet 

 greenish yellow ; mantle ash-grey ; first two primaries black, with 

 a white patch near the extremity ; the rest black near the end ; 

 head, neck, tail, and under parts white. Length, eighteen and a 

 half inches. 



The name of this species is somewhat misleading, as it is less 

 numerous on most of our coasts, and in estuaries and rivers, than 

 the black-headed species, which indeed is often called the common 

 gull. When flying about in company, the two species are indis- 

 tinguishable in the winter plumage. The common guU has no 

 breeding-place south of the Border. In Scotland and its islands 

 there are several colonies, and in Ireland a few. In its habits it is 

 intermediate between the marine and inland species, and its gulleries 

 are placed both on islands near the sea-coast and in lochs at a 

 distance from the shore. Like the herring-gull and black-headed 

 gull, it follows the plough to pick up worms and grubs, and roams 

 over moors, marshes, and pasture-lands in search of insects, small 

 vertebrates, and carrion. The nest is bulky, and composed of sea- 

 weed, herbage, and dry grass. Three eggs are laid, oh ve -brown, 

 spotted and streaked with blackish. 



