GULL. NATATORES. LARUS. 511 



Scotland ; where Sir WILLIAM JARDINE and myself have ob- 

 tained the eggs and young upon one of the islands of Loch 

 Awe. In spring, towards the middle of April, when they 

 begin to pair, the birds that breed upon the Fern Islands 

 assemble every afternoon in large flocks upon the opposite 

 mainland, and advance inland for four or five miles, aligh ting- 

 occasionally upon the pastures and newly sown corn-fields. 

 At this time they are very clamorous, keeping up a conti- 

 nual concert, by uniting in their calls peculiar to the season, 

 and which, when heard at a distance in a calm evening, have 

 a wildness of sound that is far from being disagreeable. This 

 Gull subsists on fish, and other marine animal food, and is Food, 

 often seen in pastures, or newly ploughed fields near the 

 coast, in search of worms, larva?, and insects. It readily 

 submits to confinement, and may be reared from a tender 

 age, as it thrives upon worms, or any kind of offal ; and I 

 have frequently kept it for the sake of witnessing the changes 

 in its progress to maturity, which, as in the other large 

 species, occupy three years. Its digestion is rapid, and its 

 voracity very great, as the following circumstance will shew : 

 An individual, that I kept in a garden, made no difficulty 

 of swallowing whole young Plovers of both kinds, when fully 

 half grown. In size this species equals the Herring Gull, 

 but its bill is shorter and thicker in proportion. The young 

 of both (as has already been observed) are so similar as to 

 make it very difficult to distinguish them, particularly during 

 the first or nestling plumage. 



PLATE 95. Adult Bird of the natural size, and in summer 



plumage. 



Bill ochre-yellow ; angle of the lower mandible fine aurora- General 

 red. Irides gamboge- yellow ; orbits of the eyes vermi- 5^ np " 

 lion-red. Legs and feet clear saffron-yellow. Head, Adult. 

 neck, under plumage, lower part of the back, and tail, s " mmer 

 pure white. Mantle and wing-coverts deep blackish- 

 grey. The six greater quills black ; the first with a 



