I902 Bird-Life on the Broads : Suimner 207 



species. I read the other day a few lines on " Birds which 

 never sleep," and although I did not find Larus ridibundus in- 

 cluded in the list, I was thereby reminded of a night I once 

 spent in an open boat on Somerton Broad, when a small and 

 newly-founded colony of the Black-headed Gull made such 

 a continual screeching throughout the hours of perpetual 

 twilight, that what with the lapping of the water on the 

 bottom of the boat, with only the bare boards and our boots 

 wrapped up in our coats for pillows between it and our ears, 

 and the incessant chatter of the Gulls above and around us, 

 sleep was quite out of the question. But the Gulls seemed to 

 be able to manage without rest at night, although busy 

 enough all day in providing food for their as yet unflyable 

 young, which were now dancing about like puffballs on the 

 wavelets much farther from shore than they had ventured in 

 the daytime. Their black and buff marbled plumage in the 

 down renders them far less conspicuous than would be the 

 case if clothed in parental white from infancy. In fact, in 

 this attire, both when in the nest and whilst hunting for 

 insects amidst the dark bases of old reed and sedge stems, 

 they are as protectively coloured as the shells from which 

 they were hatched, although the infinite variety in the 

 ground colour of the eggs of this species leads us to wonder 

 whether nature is working amongst them by slow but sure 

 degrees to accommodate their tint to fresh surroundings, 

 should these graceful and beneficial birds once have built 

 in more lofty and inaccessible situations. 'Tis a pretty 

 sight to see, and I delight to hear, a hundred Scoulton Cobs 

 (their local name) following the plough and picking up the 

 wireworms at barley sowing-time ; but when one ventures 

 into close proximity with such a number of these birds at 

 eventide a few weeks later, their discordant cries are not 

 conducive to slumber. Time and circumstances make a 

 great difference to country sights and sounds. The hay- 

 cutter, now in full swing, accompanied by some dozen 

 Swallows and an odd House-Martin or two — for these 

 latter are woefully scarce this season — sings not the mourn- 

 ful tale of bare fallows and dull autumn days shortly to 

 follow, as will the American Self-Binder clicking in the 

 August cornfields. The lazy humming of the Bumble Bee 

 VOL. I. — NO. 3. o 



