202 BIRDS OF GUERNSEY. 



grey on the lower part of the feathers also extends 

 farther towards the tij), thus encroaching on the 

 black of the primaries from below as well as from 

 above. I think these examples are sufiicient to 

 show that the white does encroach on the black 

 of the primaries as the bird grows older, till at last, 

 in very old birds, there would not be much more 

 than a bar of black between the white tip and the 

 rest of the feather ; and this is very much the case 

 with the tame ones I caught in Sark in 1866, and 

 which are therefore, now in the winter of 1879, 

 twelve and a half years old ; but I do not believe 

 that at any age the black w^holly disappears from 

 the primaries, leaving them white as in the Iceland 

 and Glaucous Gulls. The Herring Gull is an ex- 

 tremely voracious bird, eating nearly everything 

 that comes in its way, and rejecting the indigestible 

 parts as Hawks do. Mr. Couch, in the ' Zoologist' 

 for 1874, mentions having taken a Misseltoe Thrush 

 from the throat of one ; and I can quite believe it, 

 supposing it found the Thrush dead or floating half 

 drowned on the water. I have seen my tame ones 

 catch and kill a nearly full-grown rat, and bolt it 

 whole ; and young ducks, I am sorry to say, 

 disappear down theii* throats in no time, down and 

 all. They are also great robbers of eggs, no sort 

 of egg coming amiss to them ; Guillemots' eggs, 

 especially, they are very fond of : this may 

 probably account for there being no Guillemots 



