THE LESSER BLACK-BACKED GULL. 8 5 



him till the middle of November 1858, when, to the delight and astonishment of 

 all who knew him, he returned one afternoon at the usual time, meeting the 

 keeper with the box of food, he followed him to the enclosure where he was 

 hatched, and settling down amongst the other Gulls, took his dinner as though 

 he had never been away, not appearing the least shy or wild." 



Family LARIDAL. Subfamily LARIN&. 



LESSER BLACK-BACKED GULL. 



Larus fuscus, LlNN. 



THE Lesser Black-backed Gull is a British resident all the }-ear round, and 

 nests much more widely within our area than the Herring Gull. 



In England the following breeding localities may be mentioned : coasts of 

 Cornwall and Devonshire; Lundy Island; the Welsh coast; on Teifi Bog, in 

 mid- Wales ; the Isle of Man ; Walney Island ; the Fame Islands of which " the 

 whole group may be regarded as a huge colony of Lesser Black-backed Gulls " 

 (Seebohm) ; and also on mosses in Cumberland and Westmoreland. 



In Scotland it is rather loss common than the Herring Gull, in close prox- 

 imity to which it often rears its brood. It has nurseries in the Shetland Isles ; 

 North Ronaldsay holds the largest colony of the Orkneys ; on Dunbar's Stack, 

 near Wick, a colony finds a hospitable summit ; little flocks nest on many of the 

 islets of the Hebrides, but less numerously than the Herring Gull ; they breed 

 in larger numbers on the west coast than on the east, as undisturbed sites are 

 much more frequent on the wilder archipelagoes of the former, than on the less 

 bold and more cultivated coasts of the latter. 



In Ireland this species is also less numerous than the Herring Gull ; but it 

 resides at various places round the island more sparingly on the northern coast 



