x 
282 THE BROWN-HEADED GULL 
resembles a laugh. The systematic name, vidibundus, which has 
the same meaning, is by general consent confined to this. The 
reader, therefore, must bear in mind that though the term vidi- 
bundus will bear no translation but ‘laughing’, the name of the ~ 
Laughing Gull is Larus atricapilla, which can mean only ‘ Black- ~ 
Headed Gull’; a paradoxical statement, perhaps, but one which ~ 
it is necessary to make, or the young student will probably fall into 
error. 
Brown-Headed Gull is the most appropriate of all the above names, 
at least in summer, for at this period both male and female are 
best distinguished by the deep brown colour of the head and upper 
part of the neck. # 
This is one of the most frequent of the Gulls, to be sought for 
in the breeding season not on the rocky shore among cliffs, but on 
low flat salt marshes on the coast and in fresh-water marshes far 
inland. Early in spring large numbers of Brown-Headed Gulls 
repair to their traditional breeding-grounds and wander over the 
adjoining country in search of food, which consists of worms and 
grubs. From the assiduity with which they resort to arable land 
and follow the plough, they have been called Sea Crows. In April 
and May they make their simple preparations for laying their 
eggs by trampling down the broken tops of reeds and sedges, and 
so forming a slight concavity. The number of eggs in each nest 
is generally three, and as a large number of birds often resort 
to the same spot, the collecting of these eggs becomes an 
occupation of importance. By some persons they are considered " 
a delicacy, and, with the eggs of the Redshank, are substituted for 
Plovers’ eggs; but to a fastidious palate they are not acceptable, 
and far inferior to an egg from the poultry yard. Willughby 
describes a colony of Black-Caps on a small island in a marsh or 
fish pond, in the county of Stafford, distant at least thirty miles 
from the sea. He says that when the young birds had attained 
their full size, it was the custom to drive them from the island into 
nets disposed along the shore of the lake. The captured birds were 
fattened on meat and garbage, and sold for about fourpence or 
fivepence each (a goodly price in those days, 1676). The average 
number captured every year was 1200, returning to the proprietor . 
an income of about f15. In The Catalogue of Norfolk and 
Suffolk Birds, it is stated that precisely the same sum is paid 
for the privilege of collecting the eggs from Scoulton Mere, in 
Norfolk. Towards the end of July, when the young are fully 
fledged, all the birds, old and young, repair to the sea, and scatter 
themselves in small flocks to all parts of the coast, preferring a low 
sandy shore, or the mouth of a tidal river, as the Thames and the 
Clyde, where they are of common occurrence. They also accom- 
pany shoals of herrings and other small fish, often congregating 
with other species in countless numbers. 
