Nest-Building 



'63 



materials are brought and dropped when the bird immediately 

 settles upon them, very much like the Robin, and scratching 

 with its great webbed feet, and pressing with its beautiful 

 white breast, it practices all the typical molding movements 

 upon the inchoate mass. But whatever the material, whether 

 green and brown seaweeds freshly plucked from the rocks, or 



Pig. too. Gall sitting on the nest shown in Fig. 99. 



chips inlaid with fresh grass and weeds, they build a symmetrical 

 and often beautiful nest, with a shallow bowl, about ten inches 

 in diameter. 



A curious fact, however, with these Gulls is that the nest- 

 building instinct is so diffused that they are pulling grass and 

 picking up chips all summer long, sometimes dropping this ma- 

 terial, sometimes carrying it to their nests. They will frequently 

 repair old nests and incubate addled eggs, and I have seen the 

 dead body of an unfortunate chick treated as so much building 



