HERRING GULL. 487 



THE HERRING GULL. 

 LARUS ARGENTATUS. 



FROM Ailsa Craig northwards to the Shiant isles and the cliffs of 

 Cape Wrath, the silvery gull, as this species has been called, has 

 numerous breeding places. For the most part it prefers nesting 

 on the turf near the summit of its sea-beaten haunts, and is there- 

 fore found at times in colonies, not mixing with, but sitting 

 alongside groups of lesser black-backs as well as the great black- 

 back, forming a large but harmonious family of gulls, conspicuous 

 at a great distance when viewed from the sea, and looking like 

 large white flowers among the grass. It is very abundant on all 

 the shores, including those of the outward islands, where I have 

 observed it to be very tame. Those bred at St. Kilda and 

 Haskeir Rocks betake themselves in autumn to the western side 

 of the islands of Harris, North Uist, Benbecula, and South Uist, 

 and are easily approached. I have shot very interesting speci- 

 mens there shewing the last remains of the immature plumage, 

 sprinkled in brown spots over the back of the birds and the wing 

 coverts, giving them a marbled appearance, the rest of the plumage 

 being complete. 



Oii the eastern shores this bird is nowhere more common in 

 early spring than in Fifeshire. On Leven sands they assemble in 

 companies numbering thirty or forty birds, and show so much 

 tameness, that I have at times walked up to a group at rest within 

 twenty-five yards without causing the birds to take wing. On 

 the shores of East Lothian, and the adjoining county of Berwick, 

 Herring Gulls are also very numerous. A few pairs breed on the 

 Bass Rock but the principal station for the species in the district 

 is that part of the Berwickshire coast between St. Abb's Head and 

 Fast Castle, where there are numerous pointed stacks of rock 

 standing apart from the headland, and affording the gulls a safe 

 refuge. The nests are placed at various elevations on these isolated 

 rocks, from the topmost peak to within a few feet of high-water 

 mark, so that should a storm arise during the breeding season, the 

 nests are occasionally in danger of being swept away. 



When driving one day along the shore between Stranraer and 

 the Mull of Galloway, I observed numbers of Herring Gulls lifting 

 mussels from the beach, and, after carrying them some distance in 



