THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 89 



strong, ' Intelligencer,' vol. vii., and Mr. Hodgkiuson in the 

 same volnme) ; Mr. Mawson also includes it in a list of cap- 

 tures in Cumberland. — H. Jeniier-Fast, jun. ; Hill Court, 

 Berkeley, Gloucestershire, May 5, 1866. 



Note on certain Insects found in the Stomach of the 

 Herring Gull. — On the 19th of this month I killed some 

 herring gulls, for the sake of the viscera and other dis- 

 secting purposes. On opening one, a young male of last 

 year, dead, to all a])pearance, for about an hour, I found and 

 saw the heart still beating with the accustomed pulsations. 

 Knowing that ihe bird could not feel, for the shot had passed 

 through the brain, I removed, in a state of life, all the 

 internal organs but the lungs and the heart, the latter still 

 beating, and continuing to beat till the pulse sunk gradually 

 from excess of haemorrhage. I have always found the gull a 

 bird most tenacious of life, flying in many cases long dis- 

 tances when wounded, even in the heart and head, with No. 2 

 shot. In the gizzard I found only a quantity of larvae, pupae 

 and a few imagos of the sand-fl}', together with some shells, 

 a smaller pupa, and a creamy substance, some of which I 

 send you. I have met with these insects frequently in the 

 stomach of this bird, yet I never believed that they picked 

 up these minute creatures as food, as I have been told they 

 must do by professors of Ornithology, who, to strengthen 

 their remarlis, always informed me that the gulls ate worms, 

 a fact I well knew ; but I maintained, and maintain still, that 

 whenever these grubs are found in the stomach of this gull, 

 they have been swallowed by accident with a piece of putrid 

 substance washed from the shore by a storm or a higher tide 

 than usual ; and if you look at the minute size of some of 

 the pupae (smaller than canary-seed) I think you will agree 

 that my supposition is correct, and that the gull does not of 

 choice eat such minute food. I never found these substances 

 in a gull except during the easterly gales, the rubbish of the 

 shore being cleared off; and at these times they may be 

 found in the stomach of the largebilled great blackback gull, 

 a bird that would look very curious picking such minute 

 atoms from perhaps a minute piece of decayed animal matter, 

 whilst even the herring gull can bolt two large herrings tied 

 together, as may be seen in my gull-house during the herring 

 season : a shag can swallow six herrings without stopping, 



