GAVI&. ( 288 ) LARIDsE. 



THE KITTIWAKE GULL. 



BLACK-FOOTED KITTIWAKE, ANNET, TARROCK. 



Rissa tridactyla. 



Above, around, in cloudy circles wheel 'd, 

 Or sailing level, on the polar gale 

 That cool with evening rose, a thousand wings, 

 The summer nations of these pregnant cliffs, 

 Played sportive round, and to the sun outspread 

 Their various plumage, or in wild notes hail'd 

 His parent-beam. 



MALLET, Amyntor. 



THIS beautiful Gull formerly bred in great numbers on 

 the high precipitous rocks at St. Abb's Head, but does not 

 now nest on any part of the Berwickshire coast. Mr. John 

 Eenton of Chesterbank, who in 1794 wrote the report on 

 the parish of Coldingham for the Old Statistical Account of 

 Scotland, says, with regard to the sea-fowl which were then 

 found in that parish : " There is also a prodigious number of 

 sea-fowls known by the name of Scouts and Kittiwakes, with 

 a mixture of Sea Gulls, that arrive in the spring yearly upon 

 the high and inaccessible rocks on the south side of St. Abb's 

 Head. They breed incredible numbers of young, and when 

 the young are ripe, but before they can fly, the gentlemen 

 in the neighbourhood find excellent sport by going out in 

 boats and shooting great numbers of them ; when they are 

 killed or wounded they fall from the rocks into the sea, and 

 the rowers haul them into their boats. Their eggs are 

 pretty good, but their flesh is very bad, yet the poor people 



