26 BRITISH SEA BIRDS. 



likely that this Gull pairs for life, seeing that it 

 resorts to the same nesting places, year by year, for 

 time out of mind. The nest, even in the same 

 colony, varies a good deal in size and general 

 completeness. Some birds are content merely to 

 line a hollow in the rocks with a little dry grass ; 

 others are more bulky yet slovenly structures, rude 

 heaps of turf, heather stems, sea campions, or dry 

 grass and sea-weed, the lining being composed of 

 finer grasses, many of them often semi-green. 

 Occasionally a feather or two are seen, but these 

 may be due more to accident than to design. Few 

 sights in the bird-world are prettier than a colony 

 of disturbed Gulls during the breeding season. As 

 their haunts are invaded, the frightened birds rise in 

 fluttering thousands, drifting to and fro like a snow- 

 storm, in which each flake is a startled bird. The 

 noisy din, the rush of wings, the swooping, soaring, 

 fluttering Gulls, the ground strewn with nests all 

 combine to form a picture in the mind that time 

 can never efface ! The eggs of this Gull are 

 usually three in number, sometimes as many as 

 four. They vary to an almost incredible degree. 

 The ground colour varies from pale green to dark 

 olive-brown and gray, spotted, blotched, or streaked 

 with dark liver-brown, pale brown and gray. Vast 

 numbers of the eggs of this Gull are collected for 

 food, especially at the Fame Islands. The birds 

 do not appear to suffer in any way by this sys- 

 tematic pillage, for they are always allowed to rear 



