BLACK-HEADED GULL. 233 
attendance upon the shipping for the sake of any scraps 
they may pick up. Dr. Dobie mentions that several 
members of a flock congregated about the Woodside 
Landing-stage on February 17th, 1894, had already 
assumed their brown hoods.! 
Black-headed Gulls often visit the meres and 
reservoirs, and numbers may be seen at almost any 
season on Marbury Mere and the subsidences near 
Northwich. The flooded water-meadows of the Mersey 
near Sale have always attracted many of these birds, 
which follow the course of the river, and their numbers 
have perceptibly increased since the Manchester Ship 
Canal was cut. 
Mr. R. Newstead has observed that the Black-headed 
Gull sometimes eats beetles (Coccinellide), which are 
usually believed to be unpalatable.’ 
The gullery at Delamere is situated on a stretch of 
sandy waste covered with gorse and ling and surrounded 
by the birch and fir plantations of the forest. The nests 
are built amongst the rushes and other aquatic plants 
growing in some swampy pools, which have originated, 
like many other pools in the district, through the 
subsidence of the land overlying salt-deposits. When 
visiting the place in June 1899, we counted thirty 
adults at one time, as they flew clamouring above the 
water, and we occasionally caught sight of downy 
young ones skulking in the rushes. As the old birds 
were constantly coming and going, it is improbable 
that those we saw represented the full strength of the 
colony, which at the lowest estimate numbered fifteen 
pairs. The people in the district know the birds as 
‘Sea Crows, a name which has evidently originated 
from their habit of following the plough. 
1 Dobie, op. cit. p. 343. 2 Entomologist, vol. xxiv. p. 122. 1891. 
