98 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS 



Glaucous Gulls, who were our very intimate friends, used to carry bivalves from 

 the creek away on to the swamp behind the tent, till they had quite a collection 

 there." 



To the sportsman they are almost as great a nuisance and as irritating as 

 the great Black-backed Gulls. " They carried off," so Mr. Booth narrates his 

 experience, " several Plovers that had been knocked down and run beyond the 

 range of the shoulder gun ; and also repeatedly put up the ducks, while we were 

 sculling to them, floating quietly on the firth utterly unconscious of danger." 



" Dr. Edmondston . . . first introduced it to notice as a British Bird," writes 

 Professor Macgillivray, " having obtained in Shetland a specimen of the young 

 in the autumn of 1809 and another in 1814 which he presented to Mr. Bullock 



" Its favourite resorts are the estuaries of the more exposed bays, a few 



miles off the land, where it is often found assiduously attending the fishing 

 boats, to pick up any offals that may be thrown overboard ; and it is often taken 

 by a line and hook baited with fish, when engaged in their pursuit. It is greedy 

 and voracious to a proverb ; and when allured by carrion, which seems to be its 

 favourite food, becomes comparatively indifferent to danger. It then quits 

 the ocean and headlands, enters the bays, and boldly ventures inland. 

 Its usual deportment is grave and silent, exhibiting little of the characteristic 

 vivacity or inquisitiveness of its tribe. . . . When it flies it extends its wings 

 more than the other species of Gull, and its flight is also more buoyant ; . . . and 

 when not in quest of food, seldom comes within range of a fowling piece, but soars 

 at a respectful distance, uttering at intervals, a hoarse scream, of a sound peculiar to 

 itself. ... It is more perfectly an oceanic bird than perhaps any of the larger 

 species of the genus ; . . . I have always observed this species to be uncommonly 

 fat when it first arrives in Zetland in autumn. Indeed, I hardly remember ever 

 seeing any bird equal to it in this respect, a circumstance which, together with that 

 of the singular compactness of its plumage, and voracious avidity for carrion, first 

 induced me to suspect this marine vulture to be a native of the higher latitudes." 



" It usually breeds where there is a large colony of other sea-birds, and to a 

 large extent, it both feeds its young and itself on the eggs and young in down of its 

 weaker neighbours, and renders itself a perfect pest to them. The young of the 

 Eider, and of several other of the Sea- Ducks, are looked on by it as tender morsels ; 

 and in places to the extreme north, where these birds breed in large numbers, the 

 Glaucous Gull is almost sure to be present, and devours large numbers of the 

 young birds, pouncing down on and catching them just as it requires them." 

 (Dresser). 



