146 



BLACK-HEADED GULL. 



PEEWIT GULL. RED-LEGGED GULL. 

 PLATE CCXXII. FIG. III. 



Larus ridibundus, LINNJEUS. LATHAM. 



THIS pretty-looking bird resorts to fenny places and the sides of 

 pools and inland waters and their islands to breed, and vast multi- 

 tudes congregate together for the purpose, as well both near the sea 

 and far from it, even to the lands adjoining the sea itself, if low and 

 marshy. 



The nest is flat, and a composition of grass or the tops of reeds 

 and. sedge, placed, perhaps, on a tuft of rushes or other such herbage. 



If the first set of eggs be taken a second is laid, and a third if 

 the second, but in such cases they are less each time in size. They 

 are valued as food, and in some places are farmed for the purpose. 



The eggs, three or four in number, are laid the middle or end of 

 April, or beginning of May, chiefly at the latter season, and are 

 hatched the end of May or early in June. They vary exceedingly in 

 colour and markings; some are light blue, others yellow, and others 

 green, red, or brown. Some have scarcely any spots, and others are 

 thickly covered with marks. 



The young birds leave the nest and betake themselves to the water 

 as soon as hatched. 



Sir William Jardine writes, 'They are particular in the choice of a 

 breeding-place, at least some which we would think suited for them 

 are passed or deserted, and others more unlikely are selected. We 

 possess a reedy loch which was for many years a haunt of these birds, 

 but the edges were planted and they left it; ten years afterwards, and 

 when the plantation had grown up, a few pairs returned, and in time 

 increased to a large colony, when an artificial piece of water was made 

 by damming up a narrow pass in an extensive muir, nearly two miles 

 distant; thither the Gulls resorted the following spring, leaving their 

 ancient ground; and they have been increasing in numbers for some 

 years past.' 



