BLACK-HEADED GULL. 323 



To commence with the south-west portion of the 

 county."'*' Many years ago the black-headed gull nested 

 at Stanford on Lord Walsingham's estate. In Salmon's 

 diary are frequent mentions of this guUery; thus, on 

 the 9th March, 1834, he writes— 



*^ A very fine day. Went to Stanford warren to see if 

 the black-headed gulls (Larus ridibundus) had arrived at 

 their usual place of nidification ; found about twelve 

 pairs there. They do not appear as if they had been long 

 there, as they were not disposed to alight in the pond. 

 They kept wheeling about at a considerable height above 

 the pond, and when I left they went away. I should 

 hardly think they are settled yet, only reconnoitring 

 their future place, which is by no means a very secure 

 place, the pond being very small and close by the 

 road. From the appearance of the old nests I should 

 think a great many resort hither — the nests are placed 

 upon the tops of small hassocks which abound all round 

 the pond, standing just above the water. I understand 

 these birds had made their appearance at Scoulton mere 

 about ten days ago, and that they were tolerably nume- 



* Professor Newton has very kindly furnished me with the 

 following notes on an extinct gullery, which, although not actually 

 in Norfolk, was so near to the county boundary that it ought not 

 to be omitted here. " The extinct Brandon gullery was on a small 

 mere perhaps half-a-mile from the Brandon and Mildenhall road, 

 and so close to the Wangford boundary that in one place the 

 Wangford warren-bank may be said to have touched the water — 

 indeed, in a wet season, I have seen the water come through on the 

 Wangford side. On the 9th April, 1853, Gathercole, who had been 

 warrener on Wangford for twenty-two years, told my brother and 

 myself that the ' coddy moddies ' left off breeding there several 

 years ago ; and the tenant of the warren, Mr. Plaice, on the 

 same day told us that ' Mr. Bliss destroyed the ' coddy moddies ' 

 by taking their eggs too close.' Mr. BUss was the former owner 

 of that part of Brandon which adjoined Wangford and Elveden, 

 and had planted, chiefly with Scotch firs, many hundreds of acres 

 on his property, and among them the ground surrounding the 

 mere. The trees may have at the time of which I speak been 

 about twenty or twenty-five years old. I do not think they had 

 anything to do with the disappearance of the gulls, which I have 

 heard others, beside Plaice, attribute to the same cause that he 

 did. The mere, as I remember it, was not of any particular 

 interest, though we once found a redshank which had its brood, 

 just where the Wangford boundary abutted on it." 



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