240 OUR RARER BIRDS 



the life of a naturalist, and no matter how often his visits may 

 be repeated the interest never wanes, nor does the busy scene 

 lose any of its charm. The Black-headed Gull generally selects 

 a marshy part of a moor, or a low island in the centre of a pool, 

 for its breeding-place. Trees are by no means shunned by 

 this pretty bird, and many of its breeding-places are thickly 

 studded with low willow bushes and dwarf birches. I know 

 of districts where this bird breeds in considerable numbers, 

 which are surrounded by plantations; and in one locality 

 these trees have even been built in by one or two pairs of 

 birds. Where the ground is clothed with long coarse grass, tufts 

 of rushes, and low bushes and brushwood, there the Gulls love 

 to make their nests. As soon as the colony is invaded, the 

 frightened birds rise up from all parts of the soft elastic 

 ground, and, in a dense fluttering throng, fly and hover, and 

 turn and twist, in endless gyrations above their nests, 

 chattering loudly all the time. Numbers of birds settle on 

 the distant water; others alight on the low stumps and 

 bushes. As soon as we leave one part of the ground the 

 birds settle again; but the least unusual movement on our 

 part sends them fluttering into the air, and the noisy tumult 

 is renewed with increasing clamour, anxiety, and excitement. 

 You may now observe this Gull's powers of flight to perfec- 

 tion. Its usual mode of progress is by slow and regular beats 

 of its long wings, an interval between each stroke ; but it is 

 able to turn and hover with considerable grace, and often 

 swoops obliquely down to within a few feet of the ground, 

 then mounts buoyantly up again. Many birds may be seen 

 sailing round and round at an immense height ; and others 

 often sweep along just above the water, picking up a scrap of 

 food as they go. If this bird is comparatively silent in the 

 fields, it is most noisy at the nest, and the babel of sounds is 

 deafening, each bird uttering cries of remonstrance in many 

 modulated tones. I have known quite a party of these birds 



