124 THE GULLS 



3. Migration. In winter a considerable amount of wandering takes place, 

 having a distinct southward tendency, although apparently quite irregular in 

 character. Our exact knowledge of these movements is practically confined 

 to what has already been ascertained by the new method of bird-marking. In 

 the summer of 1909 many hundreds of young herring-gulls were "ringed" on 

 Memmert (at the south-eastern corner of the North Sea), and seventy-one of these 

 were recovered during the ensuing winter, mostly from the near neighbourhood of 

 their birthplace, the farthest record being from a distance of about one hundred and 

 twenty English miles (cf. Thienemann, Journal fur Ornithologie, 1910, p. 632). But 

 a different result was obtained from the marking of over a hundred young herring- 

 gulls at two localities on the Aberdeenshire cliffs in the summer of 1910, as the 

 following tabular summary of the record shows : 



Sept. 8, 1910 Saltfleet, Lincolnshire. 



Sept. 13, 1910 Aberdeen Harbour. 



Sept. 1910 Ryhope, Sunderland. 



About beginning of Oct. 1910 Tayport, Fifeshire. 



Oct. 3, 1910 Hunstanton, Norfolk. 



About Oct. 12, 1910 Eden estuary, near St. Andrews. 



Nov. 15, 1910 Aberdeen. 



About Jan. 30, 1911 Near Manchester. 



Two other records may also be quoted here. A herring-gull marked in the same 

 season at Loch Aan Eilean, the Lewis, Outer Hebrides, was reported from Storno- 

 way (Lewis) at the beginning of December 1910. And another, a bird in its first 

 year's plumage, was caught at night near Aberdeen on October 3, 1910, and 

 recaught on Burray, Orkney, on May 20, 1911 (cf. Thomson, Proc. Roy. Phys. 

 Soc. Edin., vol. xviii. p. 216 ; and British Birds, vol. v. p. 100). [A. L. T.] 



4. Nest and Eggs. This species is more adaptable in its habits than 

 some of the gulls : in many districts it breeds in scattered colonies along the 

 face of precipitous cliffs, but it is equally at home on the grassy tops of low 

 islands in the West of Scotland, or on shingle-beds, while sometimes it may be 

 met with breeding on the moors at some considerable distance inland, as in 

 Northumberland, and in Holland I have seen the nests among low sandhills. 

 Exceptionally the nest may be seen built on some deserted or ruinous building. 

 The nest is rather bulky and neatly built, but there is considerable variation in 

 this respect, some, presumably those of young birds, being very small and care- 

 lessly constructed. The materials used are chiefly heather twigs, stalks of marine 



