46 LONDON BIRDS 



in summer, for the greater part of its length and 

 breadth, so choked with weeds that rowing is a work 

 of difficulty, and as seen in June sunshine was, in 

 sheltered corners, white with snowdrifts of water crow- 

 foot in full blossom, gemmed with myriads of little 

 turquoise dragon-flies. 



The outline of the Mere is roughly suggestive of the 

 footmark of a clumsily-booted giant, the centre of the 

 sole from beneath the instep forward being nearly filled 

 by ' the Hearth,' a low island of half a mile in length. 

 The island, where not, as in parts, wooded, is covered 

 with a rank growth of green marsh plants, spotted with 

 ragged-robins, and breaks into flame here and there 

 with flowering broom and wild iris. 



It is on ' the Hearth ' that the Gulls have from time 

 immemorial collected in spring to breed. 



One of the many mysteries which naturalists have 

 yet to explain is the attachment of birds to particular 

 spots, to the neglect of other spots to all appearance in 

 every way as attractive. 



It was, as every one knows, St. Cuthbert who to 

 put an end to unseemly bickerings which disturbed the 

 holy calm of his meditations allotted, once for all, to 

 the Guillemots and other sea-fowl of the Fame Islands 

 their several breeding - grounds. Unfortunately no 

 record has been preserved of the origin of a law, as 

 rigidly observed, which confines the Brown-heacfed 

 Gulls of Scoulton to one little corner of one only of the 

 several islands in the Mere a patch of little more than 

 an acre where the nests (which are on the ground and 



