602 LARID^. 



blotched with two shades of dark umber ; but a pale blue 

 ground-colour is not uncommon, and salmon-coloured eggs 

 have been taken on a loch about 550 ft. above sea-level in 

 Sutherlandshire. The average measurements are 2 by 1*5 in. 

 When their nests are robbed, the birds are induced to lay 

 two or three times ; the eggs produced at these second and 

 third layings being sometimes one-third less than the natural 

 size. Mr. J. Dunbar Brander has given an account of a 

 remarkable caprice on the part of a Black-headed Gull, 

 which withdrew from the neighbouring ' gullery,' and estab- 

 lished its nest on the top of the locker in the bows of a boat 

 moored to a stake about twenty yards from the shore (' The 

 Field,' June 23rd, 1877). Incubation lasts about seventeen 

 days, and as soon as they are hatched the young conceal 

 themselves in the herbage on the approach of danger, so 

 that it is very difficult to avoid treading on some of them in 

 a crowded ' gullery ' ; they also take to the water readily. 



The note of this Gull is a hoarse cackle, which, from its 

 effect when quickly repeated, has been compared to a laugh, 

 and has given rise to one of its specific appellations. Its 

 flight is easy and buoyant. Its food is crustaceans, mollusks, 

 insects, worms ; occasionally small fishes, and even small 

 mammals, such as mice; and small birds; in fact it is 

 practically omnivorous, and the mouth of a sewer is often 

 frequented for the sake of the floating offal. It feeds largely 

 on wire-worms and grubs picked up in the freshly- turned 

 furrows, and the stomachs of some birds have been found to 

 contain grain and vegetable matter. The Rev. Richard 

 Lubbock mentions that he saw several of these birds in 

 June dashing round some lofty elms catching cockchafers, 

 and Thompson records the partiality of this species to moths. 



The adult bird in summer has the beak lake-red ; hides 

 hazel ; eyelids crimson ; a white crescentic patch across the 

 eye ; the head, occiput, and upper part of the neck, all 

 round, dark brown, the colour being most intense when first 

 assumed, and fading with time and wear ; sides and back of 

 the neck pure white ; back, wing-coverts, secondaries, and 

 tertials, uniform french-grey ; the first quill-primary black 



