GREAT BLACK-HEADED GULL. 63 



This Gull is often found inland at some distance from 

 water, visiting swamps or even following the plough. 



Nest. Generally placed on the ground, though instances 

 have been known of its being built on a tree, even at seven or 

 eight feet from the ground, or on a boat-house. Seebohm 

 states that he has found nests floating on the water, sometimes 

 slight, at other times quite substantial structures, as big as 

 Coots' nests. " On the Lower Danube," he writes, " the nests 

 were also floating on weeds of various kinds, and were of good 

 size. Although the colony was not a large one, the birds were 

 demonstrative enough, crying loudly, sometimes a single Kak^ 

 at others Kak, Kak, frequently Kark, and occasionally Kak, 

 Kark." 



Eggs. Two to three in number, varying greatly in colour, 

 occasionally in the same clutch. Mr. Robert Read writes to 

 me : " In the vast colonies in which these birds breed, one 

 may find eggs of every size, shape, and colour, from pale 

 spotless greenish-blue to deep brown, heavily marked with 

 black blotches and spots. I have frequently found four, five, 

 and six eggs in a nest, and on one occasion eight, but in most 

 of these cases the produce is undoubtedly that of more than 

 two or more females." The most typical form of egg has the 

 ground-colour dark olive or dark clay-brown, the spots being of 

 all shapes and sizes, often forming confluent blotches of black 

 or brown at the large end of the egg. Many of the overlying 

 spots have a reddish tint, and the underlying markings being 

 dusky-grey. Some varieties are bluish in ground-colour, 

 others nearly white with minute spots, while in a few examples 

 the ground-colour is a deep coffee-brown, on which the markings 

 are scarcely perceptible. Axis, 2-0-2-3 inches; diam., 1-4- 



VI. THE GREAT BLACK-BACKED GULL. LARUS MARINUS. 



Lams marimiS) Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 225 (1766); Macgill. 

 Brit. B. v. p. 526 (1852); Dresser, B. Eur. viii. p. 427, 

 pi. 604 (1872); B. O. U. List Brit. B. p. 189 (1883); 

 Saunders, ed. YarrelVs Brit. B. iii. p. 631 (1884) ; Seebohm, 

 Hist Brit. B. iii. p. 323 (1885) ; Saunders, Man. Brit. B. 





