THE BLACKHEADED-GULL 147 



me he has seen them at Llandegla, N. Wales, climb of their own 

 accord in and out of the nests into the water. On being alarmed 

 they usually left the nests, and hid in their foundations. According 

 to Dr. P. H. Bahr, 1 the instinct of the chicks, when four to five days 

 old, is to take to the water on the approach of danger, often with fatal 

 results, for some are snapped up by the larger species of Gull, and 

 others, when they become soaked with water, develop a curious sort 

 of cramp from which they do not recover. Mr. H. A. Macpherson, 

 on the other hand, observed that though the chicks are able to swim 

 strongly at an early age, they rarely attempt to escape capture by 

 taking to the water, but usually run to the bank and hide in the 

 sedges or rushes. 2 This apparent contradiction is no doubt to be 

 explained by some difference in the local circumstances, but lack of 

 cover was not one of them, for the island on which nested the colony 

 referred to by Dr. Bahr was " remarkable for its excessive verdure, 

 due to the guano deposited by generations of these gulls." 



As the young feather, they become much more inclined to wander 

 away. At Walney and Ravenglass they tend to quit the sand-ridges 

 for the flats, where they are mercilessly attacked and often killed by 

 the terns, as already described (p. 91). Both chicks and fledged young 

 are frequently maltreated by adults of their own species, sometimes 

 for no apparent reason, and at other times because they are trespass- 

 ing. Many die either from disease or starvation. At Walney, in 

 1905, I saw the ground strewn with the dead bodies of fledged young, 

 and also a fair number of old birds. 3 



At all ages the young are fed by the parents in the same way as 

 the cock feeds the hen, that is, the food is disgorged and is either 

 picked up by the young off the ground, or snatched before it 

 reaches the ground, sometimes even before it is out of the old bird's 

 beak. 



On one occasion Dr. Heatherley saw the parent bird bring up a 



1 Home Life of Marsh Birds, p. 56. 



2 Fauna of Lakeland, p. 425. 



3 Cf. Macpherson, Fauna of Lakeland, p. 425 ; British Birds (Mag.), iii. 201. 



