BLACK-HEADED GULL. 
77 
When any suitable object meets their eye, they immediately 
round to, alight on the ground, and generally keeping their 
wings extended upwards, seize it.’ The ghost-moth is a 
favourite object of pursuit on the still summer evenings, when 
it hovers over the grass or swarms about trees. 
‘It is indeed a most amusing and interesting sight to witness 
the elegant evolutions of these beautiful birds when in pursuit 
of these large moths, oftentimes brushing the surface of the 
ground with their downy breasts, and generally capturing 
with facility the moth as it hovers at a distance of from one 
to two feet from the earth. Occasionally, however, the bird 
misses its aim, and the moth, by the rapid motion of the 
Gull, is struck to the ground. The bird, however, nothing 
dismayed, hovers for a few seconds over the retreat of its 
fallen prey, and if it perceives it embedded in the grass, pounds 
upon it, or if disappointed flies off in search of another prize.’ 
May-flies also they course after over the streams almost like 
Swallows. 
The same writer from whom I have made the above quotation, 
Mr. Archibald Jerdon, adds, in the ‘Zoologist,’ page 246, ‘I 
have repeatedly seen numbers of them flying about long 
after sunset, and lately I have remarked that they come abroad 
in the evening apparently for the purpose of catching insects, 
which they do on the wing, after the manner of the Swallow 
tribe. On the 22nd. of this month, I watched the proceedings 
of a number of these birds by the banks of the Jed, between 
nine and ten o’clock. There was a small grove of trees at 
a short distance from the river, to which some of them resorted, 
flying from one extremity to the other, and returning again, 
all the while seemingly engaged in the pursuit of insects of 
some kind. Their motions were much the same as those of 
Swallows, although somewhat slower; they sometimes remained 
hovering and suspended while catching an insect, so long and 
so near the trees, that I thought they were going to alight. 
Others of them scoured the fields and the water-side, and 
others again followed the course of the river; but all appa¬ 
rently intent on the capture of some winged prey.’ 
The note is a hoarse cackle, ‘cack, cack, cack, cack,’ which 
has been likened to a laugh, from whence one of the trivial 
names of the bird. Where large numbers dwell together a 
great din is produced. 
They are very anxious about their young, and stoop and 
dash at an intruder again and again. As soon as the brood 
