GREAT BLACK-BACKED GULL. 489 



covered islets on the fresh water lakes there, and also one or two 

 in North Uist. Mr Harvie Brown found about twenty-five pairs 

 nesting, with the eggs hard sat upon, on an island in a loch near 

 Lochmaddy, on 14th May, 1870. There are likewise important 

 stations on some of the Inner Hebrides, one of these being the 

 island of Eum, where the birds are seen occupying isolated rocks 

 round the coast, safe from molestation. On St. Kilda, where 

 several hundred pairs are found breeding, they are very much dis- 

 liked by the natives, in consequence of the depredations which 

 they commit among the nests of the other birds. Mr Elwes (Ibis, 

 1869), while visiting the island of Dun, one of the St. Kilda 

 group, thus speaks of their manner of thieving : " After searching 

 for some time I looked over a cliff and saw, far below me, a broad 

 flat ledge on which hundreds of Fulmars were sitting among the 

 stones. I descended with a rope we had brought from the 

 ' Harpy/ as none of those the natives had were long enough. 

 Two of the young men followed me, coming down hand over 

 hand at a tremendous pace. As soon as the Fulmars were dis- 

 turbed from their eggs, the black-backed gulls came swooping 

 down and carried them off in their beaks, much to the indigna- 

 tion of my companions who hate the 'Farspach' (as they call 

 Larus marinus) with a deadly hatred, and practise all sorts of 

 barbarities on them whenever they catch them, as they are 

 terrible robbers of eggs." 



In the East of Scotland this species is also very common. 

 During the months of January and February I have seen as 

 many as twenty of these gigantic gulls in view at one time at 

 Dunbar, in East Lothian: they usually continued their stately 

 flight in a south-easterly direction until they reached the first of 

 the fish-curing stations along the coast. On being attracted to 

 these places by a plentiful supply of offal, they gather like a flight 

 of ravens, and I have known as many as six killed at one shot 

 from the door of one of the smoking houses. 



In various parts of Orkney and Shetland this gull, as might be 

 expected, occurs in great numbers. The following notes relating 

 to the last mentioned locality have been sent me by Captain 

 Feilden, who visited these islands in 1869: "The most interesting 

 sight at Noss Head is a vast colony of Larus marinus that has 

 taken possession of the Holm, a detached stack or rock with a flat 

 surface about two acres in extent. A tremendous chasm separates 



