COMMON, HERRING, AND BLACKBACKED-GULLS 165 



hard weather. Both the common and herring-gulls may often be seen 

 following the plough, sometimes by themselves, sometimes with other 

 species, such as rooks, starlings, and blackheaded-gulls. I have not 

 seen the blackbacked species following the plough, and can find no 

 record that they do, but they are not infrequently to be seen on the 

 ploughed fields hunting for worms and insects like their congeners. 

 They are, all four, great hunters of small rodents rats, mice, voles, 

 moles, and young rabbits. They hunt for these on field and moor, as 

 well as for less legitimate game. Occasionally they pick up grain 

 that is left uncovered, and make raids upon the turnips. Saxby 

 saw a field of turnips half destroyed by herring-gulls. The birds 

 eat the inside of the roots, leaving the outside untouched. As each 

 bird made its way into the body of a turnip, its head naturally 

 disappeared from sight, but not for long ; it fed much like a tit at a 

 cocoa-nut, dive, peck, a hasty withdrawal, nervous look round, another 

 peck, and so on. The birds seemed fully aware of the temerity of 

 their proceedings. 1 



The favourite feeding-grounds of the larger Gulls are the flats laid 

 bare by the receding tide. There, in ooze beds or rocky pools, they 

 hunt for starfish, crabs, whelks, mussels, and the like, and stranded 

 carrion. Both the herring and the common species have been seen 

 dancing on the mud or sand, like the blackheaded-gull, in order to 

 stir up whatever eatables it might contain, including worms. Of a 

 herring-gull kept by him in captivity Montagu writes : " When the 

 weather is mild and the ground moist, it is amusing to observe its 

 method of catching worms by a perpetual trampling on the same spot, 

 turning about in all directions, and eagerly examining for those that 

 rise out of the ground, which are instantly seized, and the same work 

 is .renewed. Similar means are frequently used by fishermen to 

 procure worms for bait ; but it would hardly be conceived that the 

 slight pressure or concussion occasioned by the trampling of so small 

 a body as a gull should force the worms from their retreat, but such is 



1 Birds of Shetland, p. 340. 



