LESSER BLACK-BACKED GULL. 605 



Amongst upwards of one hundred nests that I examined, 

 one or two only had small pieces of sea-weed mixed with/ 

 the other materials. They lay two or three eggs, varying 

 in their shades of colour from a dark olive brown to a light 



O 



drab, thickly spotted with ash grey, and two shades of 

 brown ; the length of the egg about two inches ten lines, 

 by one inch and eleven lines in breadth. After they have 

 begun to sit, they become very bold in the defence of their 

 eggs ; whilst among them, I was amused with one, near 

 the nest of which I was sitting ; it retired to a certain 

 distance, to give it full force in its attack, and then made 

 a stoop at my head, coming within two or three yards of 

 me ; this it continued to do, incessantly, till I left it. Mr. 

 Darling, the keeper of the light-house on the island, informs 

 me that an old woman who was in the habit of gathering 

 their eggs, had her bonnet almost torn to pieces, it being 

 perforated throughout by their bills." Mr. Selby observes 

 " that the young, upon exclusion, are covered with a parti- 

 coloured down of grey and brown ; but this is rapidly 

 hidden by the growth of the regular feathers, and in a 

 month or five weeks they are able to take wing." The 

 young birds of former seasons, while yet immature in 

 plumage and incapable of breeding from want of sufficient 

 age, are not permitted by the adult and breeding birds to 

 inhabit the breeding-stations during their breeding-season, 

 but are driven away to other localities. Mr. Selby men- 

 tions having found the eggs and young of this species upon 

 an island in Loch Awe, and in Sutherlandshire many colo- 

 nies were observed, one upon Loch Shin, and another upon 

 one of the islands of Loch Laighal. It breeds also at the 

 Hebrides, in Orkney, and in Shetland. Professor Nilsson 

 says it is common about the Baltic and on the coast of 

 Norway. It is found in Holland, France, and Belgium ; 

 the Zoological Society have received it from Oporto. It 



