194 OBSERVATIONS ON BIRDS. 



trodden down so as to be quite firm and compact. 

 The eggs were barely an inch and a half in length, 

 of an olive-green colour, thickly spotted and blotched 

 with deep brown, especially towards the larger end. 



CODDY-MODDY GULL. 



A SPECIES of gull not unfrequently visits our 

 meadows and newly ploughed lands the latter part 

 of the autumn and during winter, provincially called 

 coddy-moddy. It appears, from the specimens I 

 have seen, to be the common gull of English 

 authors * in its second year's plumage : in its adult 

 state, I have never known this gull to occur in this 

 neighbourhood. Sometimes it is observed as early 

 as the middle of October. One, shot on the 22nd of 

 that month, in 1825, had the head, neck, rump, and 

 all the under parts white, spotted with light brown ; 

 the back bluish ash-colour ; quills dusky, neither 

 tipped nor anywise spotted with white ; wing-coverts 

 pale brown ; tail white, with one broad bar of black 

 near the extremity; bill of a livid dirty-white at 

 the base, black at the tip ; feet livid, or very pale 

 flesh-colour. 



This bird has retained the name of coddy-moddy 

 in these parts ever since the days of Willughby and 

 Ray, who notice it in their respective works under 

 that title as its Cambridgeshire appellation. 



* Larus canus, Linn. 



