DOKSKT GULLKRIKS. 83 



" Hard by in those cleaves," wrote Mundy, " breed a certain 

 sea fowle named Pewitts, many of them from hence carried to 

 London, where they are kept fedd and used for dainties," 

 Sir Richard, in a note on them, states that Mundy, by "Pewitt," 

 meant the Black-headed Gull, " Pewitt " or " Puit Gull " being 

 a local name for the species; but I cannot bring myself to 

 believe that even three centuries ago this marsh-breeding gull 

 ever displayed such habits, different from the present day, as 

 to nest in sea cliffs, and I think that, as has been pointed out 

 to me by the Rev. F. C. R. Jourdain, the term "Pewitt" was 

 used in a loose and inaccurate wav by Mundy, and that the 

 young Herring Gulls were the species taken from the Portland 

 cliffs to be fattened for food, as the young of this species as 

 well as those of the Black-headed Gull were in old days con- 

 sidered a dainty. If however the word "cleaves " could possibly 

 mean, not cliffs, but marshy land (i.e. cleaving, sticky), and if 

 three centuries ago such land existed on, or around, Portland ; 

 then we have in Mimdy's statement perhaps the earliest 

 reference to the breeding of the Black-headed Gull in Dorset. 



So far as I am aware, it is less than half-a-century ago that 

 the Black-headed Gull began to colonize, or possibly re- 

 colonize Dorset. I have searched old records of the occur- 

 rence of this Gull in Dorset and cannot find that it was 

 regarded as anything more than a Winter visitor until 44 

 years ago. The late T. M. Pike records, in the Zoologist of 

 1877, that, in June of that year, about seven pairs of curious 

 birds unknown to the keeper were reported by him as breeding 

 on Littlesea, which birds on investigation he found to be 

 Black-headed Gulls; and elsewhere he records that about the 

 same time the species was breeding on a pond made for ducks 

 on Rempstone Heath, so it is reasonable to suppose that 

 somewhat less than half-a-century ago this species began to 

 establish itself as a breeding species in the county. 



The present breeding range of the Black-headed Gull in 

 Dorset extends along the S. & W. sides of the Poole basin. I 

 cannot pretend to give anything like a complete history of the 

 various stations the birds have from time to time selected. 



