80 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS. 



istics of its wild nature. In the presence of the workmen it pursues its rearing 

 duties ; but at the approach of a stranger it at once rises, sweeps through the air, 

 and makes a dart at the intruder's head. The yard- dog is unmolested, but strange 

 dogs or cats are at once put to flight by the female." 



Family LARID/F. Subfamily LARIN/E. 



HERRING GULL. 



Larus argeiitaius, GMEL. 



THE Herring Gull so named from its being supposed to guide the fishermen 

 to the shoals of herrings approaching the coast, although it is not more 

 given to their pursuit than other species of Gull belongs to the larger Gulls, and 

 is one of the commonest of our shore birds, and might, with more appropriateness, 

 have been called the "Common" Gull than the bird we last described. It is like 

 most LarincB a gregarious species, and though more numerous at some places than 

 others, there is hardly any district in the three kingdoms where it is not to be 

 seen at some period of the year. As a rule it selects rocky islands and coasts for 

 its breeding stations. In England it abounds to mention a few only of the larger 

 colonies known to us on Lundy Island ; on the rocks of Holyhead ; on the 

 beetling cliffs of Spanish Head, in the Isle of Man ; Foulshaw Moss, in More- 

 cambe Bay, and Flainborough Head. In Ireland it is met with on all the rocky 

 headlands and islands off its coast the Giant's Causeway headlands, Horn Head, 

 the Gobbins, at the entrance to Belfast Bay, and the island of Lauibay, off the 

 Dublin coast. In Scotland the Herring Gull occurs abundantly on all the Western 

 Isles, the Orkney and Shetland Archipelago, and along the eastern coast. " The 

 whole circumference of Ruin, seems to have become one vast colony of Gulls ; 



