HERRING-GULL 427 
and shell-fish. The method frequently adopted for obtain- 
ing a meal of cockles, mussels, whelks, and other molluscs, 
is singularly interesting. Unable to pierce the shell, it 
holds it in its beak, and ascends into the air to a height 
of about fifty yards. The prey is then suddenly released, 
the bird swooping after it so swiftly, that it is snatched up 
the very instant it touches the ground. If the shell be not 
broken the performance is repeated, but as it is generally 
dropped on a stony beach the contents are secured after 
one or two trials. For many years I have witnessed this 
habit of the Herring-Gull along the shores of Dublin Bay ; 
I have seen a line of a dozen or more of these birds stationed 
at regular intervals of about a hundred yards from one 
another, all busily ‘ shell dropping.’ 
Mr. A. Williams writes me that he once saw a Herring- 
Gull capture a rat on the shore, carry it off by the tail and 
drop it from such a height on to rocks that it was disabled, 
easily secured, and torn to pieces. 
Immense shoals of Herring- and other fry are rapidly 
thinned out, as bird after bird, attracted by the screeches of 
their comrades, flock to the spot, and with all haste swoop 
to the water, demolishing hundreds of their silvery prey in 
a very short time. The fields are also visited, the plough 
is followed, and grubs, worms, and grain,’ are eaten. Offal, 
including carrion, is as dainty diet to this voracious bird. 
Like other large Gulls its predatory habits render it an 
enemy to the smaller land- birds, which, as they flit over 
the sea, often partially exhausted from migration, are cap- 
tured and engulphed, feathers and all. 
Again, fledglings, baby-rabbits, and the eggs of other 
sea-fowl are habitually carried off and devoured in : large num- 
bers by this thieving bird. 
Voice.—The two- syllabled wailing note is heard for the 
most part from the cliffs during the nesting- -season, but the 
birds are also noisy when competing with one another for 
offal or living fish in the water. The voice, when first 
sounded, is prolonged and mournful, but when oft repeated 
it becomes shorter and sharper. Thus the note of an angry - 
' Mr. A. Williams has observed Herring-Gulls “ engaged in tearing 
off the grains of ripe oats from the stalks, and eagerly dev ouring them.” 
. Onexamining the ejected pellets he found them to be composed 
of “ the broken- -up outer cov ering of oat grains, closely packed together ” 
(‘Irish Naturalist,’ 1905, p. 71). 
