BIRDS IN LONDON 327 



orifices of the ears, and one further forward. The dark 

 patch is confined to the front part of the head, and does not 

 extend over the crown to the nape of the neck, as is the 

 case with the jet-black caps of terns. Black-headed gulls 

 are also called laughing gulls, from the resemblance of their 

 repeated cries to sharp laughter when they grow violently 

 excited at any disturbance of their nesting colonies, or when 

 they are being fed on the Embankment. All the gulls are 

 eager and aggressive birds ; but only the black-headed gulls 

 have so far adapted themselves with confidence to London 

 life. Their aggressiveness is very conspicuously displayed 

 towards the ducks in St. James's Park. When food is thrown 

 from the bridge to the mixed flock of waterfowl beneath, 

 the gulls hover with threatening cries above the swimming 

 pochard and wigeon, and often force them to drop what they 

 have secured. Beneath the water the diving ducks are their 

 masters ; but we have seen a tufted duck bring up sprat 

 after sprat from the shallow bottom of the lake, only to be 

 robbed of them by the gulls as soon as it appeared on the 

 surface. The gulls play pirate with the ducks' lawful gains, 

 much like Arctic skuas with the earnings of other gulls. It is 

 surprising to see the ducks victimised so easily by smaller 

 and lighter birds ; but the gulls win by sheer force of courage, 

 though it is courage in an unamiable shape. The courage 

 and intelligence displayed by the black-headed gulls in 

 London is only one form of the vitality and adaptiveness 

 which characterises their whole family. Gulls are a rising 

 race; in many parts of the country various species are 

 multiplying greatly under the protection of the Acts, extend- 

 ing their range to districts where they were formerly unknown, 

 and developing new and mischievous tastes in diet. 



In all these respects the wood-pigeon is the gull's counter- 

 part on dry land. Wood-pigeons also have enormously 



