166 THE GULLS 



the fact." 1 The two species mentioned also fly into the air with crabs 

 or shell-fish and let them drop from a height in order to break them. 

 A dozen herring-gulls or more have been observed stationed at regular 

 intervals of about a hundred yards from one another, all busily "shell- 

 dropping." 2 A common-gull has been noted to drop the same shell 

 ten times before breaking it. 3 Whether the lesser blackback drops 

 shells or practises dancing for its food is not recorded. The greater 

 blackback lets drop from a height the puffins it seizes, but what 

 purpose is served is not clear, for the unhappy victim is previously 

 banged into an almost lifeless condition and partly eviscerated. 4 This 

 gull has not been recorded as being in the habit of dropping shells 

 or crabs ; it certainly has no need to drop the latter, for its usual 

 method, noted by Mr. A. H. Patterson, at Breydon, Norfolk, is to kill 

 the crab with a blow of its bill, then swallow it whole. An individual 

 watched by Dr. Heatherley used to carry its crab to a pool and 

 wash it before swallowing. 



During the breeding season the three larger species, and to a 

 lesser degree the common-gull, devour a large number of the eggs 

 and young of other species nesting in their neighbourhood, such as 

 puffins, guillemots, shearwaters, kittiwakes, blackheaded-gulls, ducks, 

 and game-birds. Both the lesser blackbacked and the herring-gull 

 are in the habit of thrusting their heads down the puffin burrows to 

 draw out the chicks, which they peck into a condition of convenient 

 inactivity and then swallow whole. 5 The lesser blackbacked-gulls are 

 not content to devour the chicks, but also make short work of the 

 parents when they can catch them, which they succeed in doing by 

 the simple device of watching at the mouth of the nesting-hole. 

 When the unsuspecting puffin issues forth, it is seized by the neck, 

 shaken and banged about, and finally eviscerated, the opened body 



1 Dictionary of Birds (Newman's edit.). Cf. Macgillivray, History of Birds, v. 578 (common- 

 gull), 547 (herring-gull). 



1 Patten, Aquatic Birds, p. 427. See also Naumann, Vogel Mitteleuropas, xi. 248 ( Jourdain, 

 etc.). 3 Coward, Fauna of Cheshire, i. 430. 



4 C. J. King, in litt. P. Heatherley, in litt. 



