26 BRITISH (SEA BIRDS: 
likely that this Gull pairs for life, seeing that it 
resorts to the same nesting places, year by year, for 
time out of mind. The nest, even in the same 
colony, varies a good deal in size and general 
completeness. Some birds are content merely to 
line a hollow in the rocks with a little dry grass; 
others are more bulky yet slovenly structures, rude 
heaps of turf, heather stems, sea campions, or dry 
grass and sea-weed, the lining being composed of 
finer grasses, many of them often semi-green. 
Occasionally a feather or two are seen, but these 
may be due more to accident than to design. Few 
sights in the bird-world are prettier than a colony 
of disturbed Gulls during the breeding season. As 
their haunts are invaded, the frightened birds rise in 
fluttering thousands, drifting to and fro like a snow- 
storm, in which each flake is a startled bird. The 
noisy din, the rush of wings, the swooping, soaring, 
fluttering Gulls, the ground strewn with nests—all 
combine to form a picture in the mind that time 
can never efface! The. eggs’ of ) this!) Gulleme 
usually three in number, sometimes as many as 
four. They vary to an almost incredible degree. 
The ground colour varies from pale green to dark 
olive-brown and gray, spotted, blotched, or streaked 
with dark liver-brown, pale brown and gray. Vast 
numbers of the eggs of this Gull are collected for 
food, especially at the Farne Islands. The birds 
do not appear to suffer in any way by this sys- 
tematic pillage, for they are always allowed to rear 
