BLACK-HEADED GULL. 
69 
in our ears as household words,’ the one as much so as the 
other: there are several Gulleries, places so called where these 
Gulls breed, and I proceed to enumerate the principal of them. 
A famous resort for these birds is Twigmoor, near Glandford 
Brigg, in Lincolnshire, the estate of Sir John Nelthorpe, 
Bart., where as many as from ten to twenty thousand may 
be seen in the breeding-season. 
Dr. Plot, in his History of Staffordshire, gives a curious, 
not to say strange or marvellous, account of their annual 
visit to that county, for a copy of which, as follows, I am 
indebted to Thomas George Bonney, Esq., of Churchdale 
House, near Bugeley:— 
‘But the strangest whole-footed water-fowle that frequents 
this county is the ‘Larus cinereus,’ Ornithologi, the ‘Larus 
cinereus tertius,’ Aldrovandi, and the ‘Cepphus’ of Gesner and 
Turner; in some counties called the Black-cap, in others the 
Sea or Mire Crow; here the Pewit; which being of the 
migratory kind, come annually to certain pooles in the estate 
of the Bight Worshipfull Sir Charles Skrymsher, Knight, to 
build and breed, and to no other estate in or neer the county, 
but of this family, to which they have belonged ‘ultra 
hominum memoriam,’ and never moved from it, though they 
have changed their station often. They anciently came to 
the old Pewit poole above mentioned, about half a mile S.W. 
of Norbury Church, but it being their strange quality (as 
the whole family will tell you, to whom I refere the reader for 
the following relation) to be disturbed and remove upon the 
death of the head of the family, as they did within memory, 
upon the death of James Skrymsher, Esq., to Oftley Moss, 
hear Woods Eves, which Moss, though containing two 
gentlemen’s land, yet (which is very remarkable) the Pewits 
did disern betwixt the one and the other, and build only 
on the land of the next heir, John Skrymsher, Esq., so wholy 
are they addicted to this family. 
At which Moss they continued about three years, and then 
removed to the old Pewit poole again, where they continued 
to the death of the late said John Skrymsher, Esq., which 
happening on the eve to our Lady day, the very time when 
they are laying their eggs, yet so concerned were they 
at this gentleman’s death, that notwithstanding this tye of 
the Law of Nature, which has ever been held to be universal 
and perpetual, they left their nest and eggs; and though they 
made some attempts of laying again at Offley Moss, yet they 
