COMMON GULL. 73 



backed Gull on the Fame Islands, Ailsa Craig, &c., and such 

 appears to have been the experience of Mr. Saunders and other 

 naturalists. The nest is often slight, but is occasionally a 

 bulky structure of grass and seaweeds, with a lining of finer 

 grass and a few straws or stalks of the sea-campion. It is 

 placed on a slope of a cliff or on the grass near the edge of 

 the latter, sometimes in a hollow of the ground in the low- 

 lands or in the crevice of a rock. In America it is known to 

 build in trees or bushes. 



Eggs. — Two or three in number, generally the latter, and very 

 similar to those of the Lesser Black-backed and Common 

 Gulls. There is, however, a greater variation in the eggs of 

 the Herring-Gull than in those of the two last-named species, 

 and a very beautiful reddish variety is found near Vardo in the 

 north of Norway, which Seebohm believed to be the egg of the 

 Glaucous Gull. On this point, however, Mr. Henry Pearson 

 and Mr. Edward Bidwell have made some remarks in the 

 "Ibis" for 1894 (p. 236). They procured some of these red 

 eggs tliemselves in Northern Norway, in a district where there 

 were no ulaucous Gulls. They write : — "The natives ascribe 

 them to ihe Herring-Gull and say that, however large the 

 colony may be, the red eggs are never found in more than one 

 nest in the colony." 



The ground-colour varies in the same way as in tlie eggs of 

 the Lesser Black-backed Gull, but the Herring-Gull rarely seems 

 to lay eggs of the dark chocolate type. As, however, this is 

 sometimes the case, it may be said that the eggs of the two 

 species are so similar that there is no character by which they 

 can be distinguished, and that too much care cannot be taken in 

 their identification. Axis, 2-6-3"05 inches; diam., i*85-2i. 



IX. THE COMMON GULL. LARUS CANUS. 



Lams canus, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 224 (1766); Macgill. Brit. 

 B- V. p. 575 (1852) ; Dresser, B. Eur. viii. p. 381, pi. 600 

 (1873); B. O. U. List Brit. B. p. 189 (1883)': Saunders, 

 ed. Yarrell's Brit. B. iii. p. 613 (1884); Seebohm, Hist, 

 Brit. B. iii. p. 316 (1885); Saunders, Man. Brit. B. p. 655 

 (1889); Lilford, Col. Fig. Brit. B. part xx. (1891); 

 Saunders, Cat. B. Brit. Mus. xxv. p. 277 (1896). 



