560 LARID.E. 



course, as if to examine some object below ; but on none of 

 these occasions did I see one attempt to alight, for it soon 

 resumed its wonted course, and rejoined its companions. 



" I never found more than three eggs in a nest. Their 

 average length is two inches and half an eighth, their 

 greatest breadth a trifle more than an inch and a half. 

 They vary somewhat in their general tint, but are usually 

 of a light earthy olive, blotched and spotted with dull 

 reddish-brown, and some black, the markings rather more 

 abundant towards the larger end. As an article of food 

 they are excellent. These Gulls are extremely anxious 

 about their eggs, as well as their young, which are apt to 

 wander away from the nest while yet quite small. They 

 are able to fly at the end of six weeks, and soon after this 

 are abandoned by their parents, when the old and young 

 birds keep apart in flocks until the following spring, when, 

 I think, the latter nearly attain the plumage of their 

 parents, though they are still smaller, and have the 

 terminal band on the tail." 



This species has been taken on the coast of Spain, in the 

 Straits of Gibraltar, at Genoa, on various islands of the 

 Mediterranean Sea, at Sicily, and in the Grecian Archi- 

 pelago. It feeds on insects, small fishes, and minute 

 Crustacea. 



It is perhaps to this bird that Dawson Borrer, Esq. 

 refers when dining on board H.M.S. the Howe, then 

 lying off the Piraeus, a celebrated harbour at Athens, at 

 the mouth of the Cephisus. " I had here the opportunity 

 of observing a curious testimony of the sagacity of the Sea- 

 gull. The moment the bell rang for the men's dinner, 

 though before hardly one of these birds was on view, 

 hundreds appeared gathering around the ship ; and I was 

 assured that regularly as the bell rang, this ornithological 



