324 BRITISH BIRDS. 



In the southern hemisphere, south of the tropics, it is represented by 

 Larus dominicanus, a bird with a stouter bill, a browner back, and greener 

 legs and feet. In the Behring Sea a still closer ally occurs, Larus 

 schistisagus, which appears to be an intermediate form between L. marinus 

 and L. affinis, if it be not an accidental variety of the latter. 



The Great Black-backed Gull is the largest species of Gull, and conse- 

 quently the most wary. It does not differ much in its habits from its 

 oceanic allies, but it is perhaps more exclusively oceanic than they are, 

 often wandering far from land, frequently sleeping on the waves, and 

 rarely straying inland far from the shore, except where the coast offers it 

 no breeding-place secure enough from danger. No Gull is more difficult 

 to approach within range, nor takes greater pains to build its nest 

 in inaccessible places. It seems always afraid of being killed or robbed, 

 and yet it is itself one of the greatest murderers and robbers of the coast. 

 It is the scavenger of the shore, and may be seen lazily searching for dead 

 fish or other carrion, or slowly flying out to sea, its long broad pinions 

 steadily and deliberately moved like those of a Heron or an Eagle, to pick 

 up any offal that may be floating on the water. Sometimes it may catch 

 a fish which has ventured too near the surface ; and no marine animal, 

 from a crab to the smallest shell-fish, is safe from its beak. In the 

 breeding-season it steals Terns' and Plovers' eggs from the strand, and even 

 robs the ledges where the Guillemots and Fulmar Petrels breed, sticking 

 its powerful bill into the eggs, or snapping up the young birds before they 

 can fly. In districts where the Eider Duck breeds, it is looked upon as a 

 great enemy, and persecuted accordingly. It is scarcely so gregarious as 

 the other species of Gull ; nothing is more common than to see solitary 

 birds, and flocks larger than from half a dozen to a dozen birds are rarely 

 met with. Even in the breeding-season it is less sociable than other Gulls : 

 on the coast of Norway I rarely found more than one nest on an island ; 

 but in districts where secure nesting-places are scarce, it is obliged to 

 become gregarious. An inaccessible rock on the coast, with a flat top 

 covered with grass, is the situation it likes best; but if such cannot 

 be found, it will satisfy itself with an island on a lake, and to obtain such 

 a comparatively secure position for its nest it often wanders far inland. 

 Like those of all other Gulls, the nests of this bird are carelessly made, 

 and are little more than a depression in the grass or heath, or even a niche 

 in the bare rock, roughly lined with dead grass, seaweed, and occasionally 

 ornamented with a twig or two round the edge, or a few feathers or sheep's 

 wool in the middle. North of the Arctic circle I have taken fresh eggs 

 during the first half of June, but in Scotland the first eggs are laid a 

 month or more earlier. A full clutch of eggs is three, but two are not 

 unfrequently found. They vary very slightly, and are usually greyish 

 brown in ground-colour, sometimes very slightly tinged with olive, and 



