82 DORSET GULLERIES. 



of the birds choosing the isolated pinnacles of chalk a little 

 distance from the shore. No more are found breeding until 

 Durlston Head is rounded ; but between that point and 

 S. Aldhelm's Head there are numerous and almost continuous 

 colonies on the Purbeck cliffs which there fall steeply into the 

 sea. 



The colonies are thickest just west of Anvil Point, east of 

 Dancing Ledge, and especially along the east face of S. 

 Aldhelm's headland from Seacombe to the Head, along which 

 stretch there must be some 300 pairs of nesting birds. A good 

 many breed on the cliffs at the S.W. end of S. Aldhelm's 

 Head, but from that point I do not think many breed on the 

 intervening Kimmeridge clay until Gadd cliff and the high 

 chalk eastern, sea-face of Bindon Hill are reached, and the 

 lower cliffs just east of Lulworth Cove. A few nest along the 

 cliffs between the Cove and Durdle Door, but the next large 

 colonies are on the high chalk cliffs at Swyre Head and 

 immediately to the west of Bat's Head, and from there along 

 the chalk to White Nose. From this point the species does 

 not appear to breed until Portland is reached, the coast 

 presenting few suitable stations, and the Portland colony, small 

 on the east side near the Convict Prison, and numerous on the 

 west from Blacknor Battery to the Bill, appears to be the 

 most westerly one in Dorset, as, so far as I am aware, the 

 species is not met with again breeding in any numbers, if at all, 

 until the Beer Headland in Devon is reached. 



So much for the larger species, which has probably been a 

 resident on the Dorset coast from time immemorial. 



Let us turn now to the Black-headed Gull. Here we 

 are faced with an interesting problem. Is this species a 

 recent colonist in the county, or has it returned to haunts 

 formerly colonized and since deserted ? We perhaps cannot 

 say, but at the last meeting of the Dorset Field Club an 

 interesting point in our President's paper came to my notice 

 which I will refer to. The paper was on u Portland " from 

 Sir Richard Temple's edition of the Travels of Peter Mundy, 

 Cornishman, in England in 1635, 



