74 ODD HOURS WITH NATURE 



passes among them is easily imaginable. " Why 

 should we leave this most eligible sewer," objects 

 a blase young bird ; " there is everything here 

 that could delight the heart of a gull." The truth 

 of the observation is admitted, but the patriarchs 

 of the flock point out that this going away in the 

 month of March is a very ancient custom of the 

 gulls, which, even in these unsettling times, it 

 would be unwise to disregard. Young gulls sneer 

 at ancient customs with the levity of bachelor 

 men -about -town, but one fine morning they are 

 all gone. Five-sixths of the gulls which haunt 

 the river are of the black -headed breed, a species 

 which is on the high road to the abandonment of 

 all claim to be considered a sea-bird. They are 

 at home in towns ; they follow the plough like 

 rooks, and in the breeding season they betake 

 themselves to inland lochs and marshes, often far 

 away among the hills or woods, where they may 

 be seen in the company of such purely inland 

 birds as coots and waterhen. This choice of a 

 breeding haunt can, however, be no modern custom, 

 for it has consequences of which the gulls must 

 strongly disapprove. For one thing their eggs 

 are regularly " harvested," a process which is 

 carried out amid great emotional clamour. As, 

 however, the birds go on resolutely laying more, 

 they are always able to raise a brood. But it 

 is much more interesting to follow the common 

 gull and kittiwake to nesting-places more charac- 

 teristic of the tribe. The cliffs are the great 

 gathering ground, and from a convenient post on 

 the crest of them the whole comedy of gull love, 



