THE BLACK-HEADED GULL. 6 9 



off its coast. In Ireland it nests on the islands near Enniscoe and Brrew; in 

 Lough Conn and Lough Carra, Co. Mayo ; in Killeenmore Bog, Tullamore, and 

 in many of the less disturbed bogs in a score of counties. In Scotland it occurs 

 in large colonies in many of the lochs on the mainland, in Orkney and Shetland 

 also, and in the Western Isles. 



Scoulton Mere, in Norfolk, according to Mr. Seebohm, is about one hundred 

 and fifty acres in extent, with an island in the centre covering some seventy acres, 

 and on this "reservation" the Gulls breed. "The colony," he says, "consists of 

 about eight thousand birds, and is said to be gradually increasing in size. Ten 

 years ago [about 1875] it had dwindled down to less than half that number, in 

 consequence of a succession of dry seasons and reckless shooting in the neighbour- 

 hood ; but forty years ago [1845] the colony was estimated at upwards of twenty 



thousand birds Half of them stop at home to sit on the eggs, the male 



taking his turn when the female is feeding, and the other half are scattered over 

 two or three hundred square miles of ground." 



" Of all our Gulleries," writes the Rev. H. A. Macpherson, in the " Vertebrate 

 Fauna of Lakeland," "no one is inferior in interest to that which occupies a few 

 acres of water, half clothed with grass and bog-bean, at Moorthwaite, near Wigton. 

 As recently as 1889, I considered this to be numerically the strongest Gullery in 

 north-west England, a fact that is remarkable because it has no pedigree. It was 

 only founded in 1878, by four pairs of birds. In 1879, thirty pairs of Gulls 

 nested there. Ten years later I calculated that a thousand pairs bred there. 

 Certaiuly it was an extraordinary sight to witness. Many hundreds could at any 

 time be seen hovering in a white cloud over their nests. The surface of the tarns 

 stretched out before us like a white sheet, so closely were the resting birds massed 

 together ; several hundreds formed a white patch on the dark surface of a neigh- 

 bouring field ; many more were constantly arriving with food for their young, 

 gathered for miles round." 



The Black-headed or it would be more correct to call it the Brown-headed 

 Gull presents the same plumage in both sexes, but the female is in size generally 

 though not invariably, somewhat smaller than the male. In breeding plumage 

 both sexes have the head, as low as the nape and throat, where it is sharply 

 circumscribed, hooded in chocolate brown, the lower margin of the hood almost 

 black ; a white ring surrounds the eye ; the hind neck, round by the lower throat, 

 the white of the under surface, the wing-margins, bastard wing and primary 

 coverts (these flushed with grey), the rump, the upper tail-coverts and tail piire 

 white the under surface often presenting a rosaceous flush in the living bird ; 

 the mantle, the upper back, the wing-coverts, most delicate lavender-grey ; outer 



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