CHAP, xii.] ITS EGGS. 409 



not take any, as they were then useless for food, accord- 

 ing to English, though not to Icelandic tastes. But 

 before incubation has commenced, they are excellent 

 eating, and are sold largely for that purpose during their 

 short season, which lasts for about three weeks at the 

 end of April and the beginning of May. Thirty or forty 

 years ago they were sold in Norwich fish-market at the 

 rate of four a penny, and even cheaper; but they have 

 now risen to hen's-egg price, and even dearer. They 

 are brought in much fewer numbers, and are appreciated 

 accordingly. The fragility and thinness of their shell 

 is a bar to their travelling long distances ; but many 

 are boiled, and sent away in that more secure state. 

 These eggs are mostly covered with dark irregular 

 blotches, on a brown, or olive, or sea-green ground ; 

 and it is curious that no two eggs are alike. A person 

 unacquainted with them might suppose them to be laid 

 by different species of birds. 



When the first laying of four eggs is taken from a 

 nest, the birds soon lay again ; but the second laying is 

 marked with much fainter colours, and sometimes is 

 without any blotches, being all over of a pale sea-green, 

 as if the colouring matter, secreted in the ovaries of the 

 bird, had been exhausted by the unusual drain upon its 

 powers. These Gulls return year after year to the same 

 breeding-places ; and, by the annual supply of eggs 

 which they furnish, may almost be considered as part 

 of the proprietor's live stock. If any set of circum- 

 stances should arise to make the true domestication of 

 Gulls desirable (which with their natural diet, unsavori- 

 ness of flesh, and small annual increase, we can hardly 

 conceive), I am not inclined to include the accomplish- 

 ment of such an attempt in the list of impossibilities. 



