LAUGHING GULL. 579 



" I never found more than three eggs in a nest. Their 

 average length is two inches and half an eighth, thek 

 greatest breadth a trifle more than an inch and a half. 

 They vary somewhat in their general tint, but are usually 

 of a light earthy olive, blotched and spotted with dull 

 reddish-brown, and some black, the markings rather more 

 abundant towards the larger end. As an article of food 

 they are excellent. These Gulls are extremely anxious 

 about their eggs, as well as their young, which are apt to 

 wander away from the nest while yet quite small. They 

 are able to fly at the end of six weeks, and soon after this 

 are abandoned by their parents, when the old and young 

 birds keep apart in flocks, until the following spring, 

 when, I think, the latter nearly attain the plumage of their 

 parents, though they are still smaller, and have the termi- 

 nal band on the tail." 



This species has been taken on the coast of Spain, in the 

 Straits of Gibraltar, at Genoa, on various islands of the 

 Mediterranean Sea, at Sicily, and in the Grecian Archi- 

 pelago. It feeds on insects, small fishes, and minute crus- 

 tacea. 



It is perhaps to this bird that Dawson Borrer, Esq. 

 refers when dining on board H. M. S. the Howe, then 

 lying off the Piraeus, a celebrated harbour at Athens, at 

 the mouth of the Cephisus. " I had here the opportunity 

 of observing a curious testimony of the sagacity of the 

 Sea-gull. The moment the bell rang for the men's dinner, 

 though before hardly one of these birds was on view, 

 hundreds appeared gathering around the ship ; and I was 

 assured that regularly as the bell rang, this ornithological 

 phenomenon took place immediately ; and great is the 

 wheeling and screaming of the expectant birds when the 

 first cargo of the remnants of the feast appear." 



The bill is red ; the irides very dark, almost black ; 



p P 2 



