LARIDA. 613 
on the uppermost shelf of isolated rocks or upon 
some unfrequented grassy island: it is of consider- 
able dimensions, made of sea-weed, herbage and 
sticks, mixed up with earth.* 
The Great Blackbacked Gull is a very ravenous 
bird, feeding on nearly anything that comes in its 
way, perhaps carrion for choice, and human flesh by 
no means objected to, for Dr. Saxby, in the ‘ Zoolo- 
gist’ for 1865 (p. 9486), says that a Shetlander, 
having climbed to the nest of a bird of this species 
in order to take the young, found a man’s finger, 
which had been brought to them for food. Ducks, 
when wounded (and perhaps even when not wounded), 
are occasionally attacked on the water and killed: 
eggs also seem to be fully appreciated. 
In plumage this bird is so like the Lesser Black- 
backed Gull in all its stages that it is scarcely worth 
while to describe it: it may always be readily dis- 
tinguished from that bird by its great superiority in 
size, its whole length being as much as thirty inches, 
while the Lesser Blackback 1s only twenty-three 
inches in length, and the better-known Herring Gull 
varies from twenty-two to twenty-four inches. ‘The 
bill and legs also differ from those of the Lesser 
Blackback, the bill being pale yellow, the angle on 
the lower mandible orange; the legs and feet flesh- 
colour. 
* Meyer's ‘ British Birds,’ vol. vii., p. 159. 
3G 
