626 LARIDvE. 



examined, one or two only had small pieces of sea-weed 

 mixed with the other materials. They lay two or three eggs, 

 varying in their shades of colour from a dark olive-hrown to 

 a light drab, thickly spotted with ash-grey, and two shades 

 of brown ; the length of the egg about two inches ten lines, 

 by one inch and eleven lines in breadth [2*8 by 1*9 in.]. 

 After they have begun to sit, they become very bold in the 

 defence of their eggs ; whilst among them, I was amused 

 with one, near the nest of which I was sitting ; it retired to 

 a certain distance, to give it full force in its attack, and then 

 made a stoop at my head, coming within two or three yards 

 of me ; this it continued to do, incessantly, till I left it.* 

 Mr. Darling [father of the celebrated Grace Darling], the 

 keeper of the light-house on the island, informs me that an 

 old woman who was in the habit of gathering their eggs, had 

 her bonnet almost torn to pieces, it being perforated through- 

 out by their bills." This species is later in laying than the 

 Herring Gull, fresh eggs being found well into June. Mr. 

 Selby observes " that the young, upon exclusion, are covered 

 with a parti-coloured down of grey and brown ; but this is 

 rapidly hidden by the growth of the regular feathers, and in 

 a month or five weeks they are able to take wing." The 

 young birds of former seasons, while yet immature in plum- 

 age and incapable of breeding from want of sufficient age, 

 are not permitted by the adult and breeding birds to inhabit 

 the breeding-stations during their breeding-season, but are 

 driven away to other localities. 



Small surface-swimming fishes, upon which these birds 

 precipitate themselves from the air, and animal substances 

 floating, or brought to shore by the tide, form their most 

 usual food, but both old and young are seen occasionally to 

 go inland from the coast, to search moist pastures, or recently- 

 ploughed fields, for worms, insects, and their grubst Mr. 

 T. E. Buckley says of this species in Sutherlandshire, that 

 it eats a great deal of grain in the spring months, as may be 

 seen by a visit to the localities in which it breeds, for it casts 



* The Editor had a similar experience at Lundy Island, and was obliged to 

 strike a bird several bluws with the ramrod of his gun before it would desist. 



