THE BLACK-HEADED GULL. 71 



and with underlying markings of greyish-brown " (Seebohm) ; occasionally they 

 may be of a reddish ochre ground colour, with pale rust-coloured blotches, while 

 often, on the other hand, the various ground colours may be entirely unspotted, 

 and the egg evenly covered as with a fine spray. 



During the period the eggs are being produced most profusely about 

 the middle of May thousands are taken from the nests for the market, on 

 account of the excellence of their flavour, which is considered almost as good as 

 that of Plovers'. They are boiled hard and eaten cold, just as the latter are. 



From about twenty-three to twenty-four days after incubation has commenced, 

 the young chicks appear, covered with a brownish-buff down above, yellowish-white 

 beneath, and having the head, throat and back streaked with black or coffee-brown ; 

 they are able to run about as soon as they are out of the egg ; indeed they may 

 sometimes be seen trotting off with their hinder regions encased in a buckler of 

 shell. " It is curious to see the craftiness displayed by the young, not, indeed, by the 

 very small ones, but by those which are growing strong. Although they can patter 

 down the slopes of the sand-hills; or run across a shingled beach very fast indeed, 

 they prefer to escape by hiding up. The very little chicks are content to rest 



quietly in their nest But those feathered hide up and remain so still 



that it is very difficult to avoid treading on them. The birds which are bred in 

 the neighbourhood of water, and which swim strongly at an early age . . . rarely 

 attempt to escape capture by swimming. If danger threatens they usually run in 

 for shelter to the bank . . . But as the young begin to feather they skulk less 

 and draw together in level places .... [and eventually] congregate together in 

 parties of twenty and thirty birds until, their pinions growing strong, they leave 

 the nursery on their own account . . . ." (Macpherson). 



The full-fledged birds have the forehead white, top of head and nape greyish- 

 brown, with a grey patch in front of the eye and over the ear-coverts ; throat and 

 under side white ; breast and sides of body reddish-yellow ; rump and upper tail- 

 coverts white, with reddish-yellow edges ; tail white, with black terminal band ; 

 mantle and shoulders brown, with yellowish-brown edges, but grey at base ; greater 

 wing-coverts lavender-grey, speckled with brown ; " primaries as in the adult, with 

 tiny white-brown tips, but with much more black on both webs, the black approaching 

 the shaft ; secondaries grey, broadly tipped with white, and with a longitudinal 

 black mark towards the end of the outer web, decreasing in extent on the inner 

 secondaries " (Sharpe) ; bill yellow, black at the angle ; legs and feet reddish. 



This plumage has, by December, become modified by the exchange of the 

 brown for a grey mantle ; and before it is a year old " more or less of a brown 

 hood is assumed " (Saunders) ; while at the moult in the following autumn the 



