LARID^I. 593 



dead from starvation, one even in Leicestershire, 

 near a place called Earl Shilton, said to be the very 

 centre of England.* 



On the south coast of Devon, off Teignmouth and 

 Exrnouth, the Kittiwakes appear to me at times to 

 exceed any of the other Gulls in number : they ap- 

 pear in these great numbers generally about Novem- 

 ber, when the sprats are about, and I have often 

 on a calm day rested in my boat, watching them 

 all around me : they do not appear to show the 

 slightest fear, but come close round the boat so 

 close that on one occasion a boy who was with me 

 struck at them several times with the paddles, and 

 they were quite within his reach. Sometimes they 

 pay rather dearly for their boldness, as their human 

 persecutors often attack them on such occasions, 

 when it is perfectly impossible to pick out a clear 

 shot, more than one almost always falling to a shot, 

 to say nothing of how many go off wounded. More- 

 over, as the Kittiwakes always come to look at a 

 jiead or wounded companion, they afford certain op- 

 portunities for slaughter. When these gatherings 

 take place the Kittiwakes seem to be almost in- 

 numerable. I have just quoted a description of the 

 Blackheaded Gulls, comparing their numbers on 

 their breeding ground to the flakes of snow falling 

 upon two acres of land during a heavy snow storm : 



* ' Zoologist' for 1868 (Second Series, p. 1213). 



3 c 3 



