408 THE GULL. 



to twenty thousand, and more might be taken occasionally ; 

 for instance, thirty thousand would not have been too large a 

 proportion for this Spring (1837), it having been a wet one. 

 Notwithstanding this drawback, the number of these annual 

 visitants appears to increase. They feed themselves and their 

 young on week days by following the ploughman's heels, 

 pouncing fearlessly upon the grubs and worms turned up by 

 the share, so that they are great favourites with all the 

 farmers within six or seven miles of the mere. On Sundays, 

 when the ploughs are not at work, they betake themselves 

 to the meadows and dry pastures, in search of similar food, 

 foraging over a whole field with the greatest regularity and 

 order. 



The eggs are very good eating ; the yolk is considered by 

 many equal to the Plover's, but the white less transparent 

 and gelatinous. The young birds being web-footed, take to 

 the water as soon as hatched, but are fed by the old ones till 

 they can fly ; when nearly fledged, they are not bad food, 

 though not often brought to table at present. The young 

 birds for the first year are of a brownish grey colour, with 

 partial patches of white, but have neither the black cap, nor 

 black tips of wings, nor the delicate white of the breast, nor 

 the slate-coloured back and wings, which they return with in 

 the following year. They remain till the young birds are 

 strong enough for a long flight, when they assemble in 

 detachments on an open field in the evening, and go off in 

 the night. The first detachments retire about the end of 

 July, and they almost entirely disappear in the course of 

 August. 



To what regions the great body resort for their Winter 

 abode is not exactly known ; probably they separate, and 

 parties linger in particular spots, as in the Autumn they 

 appear in great abundance on the coast of Carmarthen and 

 Glamorganshire, about the mouths of rivers. In Northum- 

 berland they are also common, and for many years have 

 attached themselves to a large pond at Pallinsburn, the seat 

 of A. Askew, Esq., where their habits and punctuality are 

 similar to the account above given, and from whence (in con- 



