466 LARID.E. 



depression or hollow of the rock. Amongst upwards of one 

 hundred nests that I examined, one or two only had small 

 pieces of sea-weed mixed with the other materials. They lay 

 two or three eggs, varying in their shades of colour from a 

 dark olive-brown to a light drab, thickly spotted with ash- 

 grey, and two shades of brown ; the length of the egg about 

 two inches ten lines, by one inch and eleven lines in breadth. 

 After they have begun to sit, they become very bold in the 

 defence of their eggs ; whilst among them, I was amused 

 with one, near the nest of which I was sitting ; it retired to a 

 certain distance, to give it full force in its attack, and then 

 made a stoop at my head, coming within two or three yards 

 of me, this it continued to do, incessantly, till I left it. Mr. 

 Darling, the keeper of the light-house on the island, informs 

 mc, that an old woman who was in the habit of gathering 

 their eggs, had her bonnet almost torn to pieces, it being- 

 perforated throughout by their bills." Mr. Selby observes 

 " that the young, upon exclusion, are covered with a parti- 

 coloured down of grey and brown ; but this is rapidly hidden 

 by the growth of the regular feathers, and in a month or five 

 weeks they are able to take wing." The young birds of 

 former seasons, while yet immature in plumage and incapable 

 of breeding from want of sufficient age, are not permitted by 

 the adult and breeding birds to inhabit the breeding-stations 

 during their breeding-season, but are driven away to other 

 localities. Mr. Selby mentions having found the eggs and 

 young of this species upon an island in Loch Awe, and in 

 Sutherlandshire many colonies were observed, one upon Loch 

 Shin, and another upon one of the islands of Loch Laighal. 

 It breeds also at the Hebrides, in Orkney, and in Shetland. 

 Professor Nilsson says it is common about the Baltic and on 

 the coast of Norway. It is found in Holland, France, and 

 Belgium ; in Dalmatia, and the isles of the Adriatic. M. 

 Savi includes it in his Birds ol' Italv. It is found also in 



