LARID.t:. 



66i 



-m 



THE GREAT BLACK-BACKED GULL. 



Larus ]marinus, Linnffius. 



As a breeding-species this is by no means plentiful in England, 

 though birds in various stages of immaturity may be seen on our 

 coasts at all seasons — sometimes in considerable flocks — until the 

 first appearance of black on the mantle in the third year, after 

 which there is a tendency to separation into pairs. At the present 

 day a few only nest on the cliffs of Dorsetshire, Lundy Lsland. 

 Cornwall, Scilly, Wales, and, perhaps, on the Isle of Man ; but 

 in 1885 about fifteen couples inhabited the flows in the neigh- 

 bourhood of the Sohvay, though on the east of England no 

 breeding-place is known. In Scotland tl.is rapacious Gull is far 

 more abundant, especially on the deeply indented coasts and islands 

 of the north and west, and above all in the Outer Hebrides, where 

 colonies of twenty to twenty-five jjairs may be found ; it also resorts, 

 there and elsewhere, to islets in mountain lakes, and lofty hill-tops. 

 In Ireland it is not met with in such assemblages, but is widely 

 distributed. 



