408 THE BLACK-HEADED GULL. [CHAP. XII. 



process ; he waited till the young woman stepped aside 

 for some household duty, and then dipped his head in 

 the pail and made off with the prize. This was a dif- 

 ferent case from that of the kittens ; so the girls and 

 boys had a chase round the gardens, to see whether 

 Gully or they should have to go without a meal. 



The smaller Gulls make the prettiest inmates of a 

 pleasure-ground, but they are all equally mischievous 

 according to their ability. About the most pleasing of 

 them is the Black-headed Gull, Larus ridibundus, 

 known in East Anglia as the Sea Cob *. The term, 

 though provincial, is not a vulgarism, being used by 

 Shakspeare. This species still breeds in the few 

 localities in Norfolk in which they are strictly pre- 

 served; otherwise they would soon be expelled from 

 the county. They mostly make their nests on the 

 ground, in low flat swamps; but a relative, now no 

 more, once took me to see his colony of Sea Cobs on 

 Martham Broad, and all the nests which I there saw 

 were not on land at all, but on the water. We rowed 

 to the spot in a boat ; the birds were on the nests, it 

 being then sitting time. As we approached, they rose 

 in a little cloud, hovering over our heads with anxious 

 screams. The nests were each attached to four or five 

 stiff reeds and rushes, and so supported just above the 

 surface of the water, which here was five or six feet 

 deep. Those nests that had not been robbed contained 

 the regular number of four eggs. We did not remain 

 long, in order to avoid annoying the birds unnecessarily ; 

 and, as we departed, they gradually descended from 

 above, and soon settled on their eggs again. We did 



* " Larus Marinus ; Anglice, ut Turnerus interpretatur, Seecob. 

 vel Seegul." Aldrovandi. 



