20 BRITISH SEA Coins: 
extremely local, and nowhere, comparatively speak- 
ing, numerous. During the non-breeding season 
it wanders more, and is then seen at many places 
along the coast. I have seen as many as fifty of 
these fine birds in Tor Bay, after heavy gales from 
the eastward. Montagu asserts that this Gull is 
locally known as a “ Cob,” but the term is of pretty 
general application to the larger Gulls, and, so far 
as I can learn, has no distinctive significance. In 
St. Kilda, where I had many opportunities of 
studying the habits of this Gull, it is regarded with 
hatred by the natives, owing to its depredations 
amongst the eggs of the other sea-fowl. In this 
island it is universally known by the name of 
“Farspach.” No Gull is more wary, and yet on 
occasion none are bolder and more daring. I have 
seen a bird of this species tear to pieces a Puffin I 
had shot as it floated upon the sea, and that in spite 
of several shots I had at it with a rifle. It is a sad 
robber of the other and more weakly Gulls, not 
only pillaging their nests at every opportunity, but 
chasing them, and making them relinquish bits of 
food they may chance to pick up within view. 
Like the Raven and the Crow, it seems fully 
conscious of its marauding misdeeds, and corres- 
pondingly artful, as if always instinctively fearing 
that treatment it metes out so lavishly to creatures 
more helpless than itself. 
The Great Black-backed Gull is one of the least 
gregarious of the family, and the large gatherings 
