THE GULL. 245 



(where, though tempted to stay with all the care 

 imaginable,) yet continued there but two years, and 

 then returned again to another poole of the next 

 heir of John Skrymsher, deceased, called Shebben 

 Poole, in the parish of High OfHey, where they 

 continue to this day, and seem to be the propriety, 

 as I may say (though a wild fowle), of the right 

 worshipfull Sir Charles Skrymsher, knight, their 

 present lord and master. 



" But, being of the migratory kind ? their first ap- 

 pearance is not till about the latter end of February, 

 and then in number scarce above six, which come, 

 as it were, as harbingers to the rest, to see whether 

 the hafts or islands in the pooles (upon which they 

 build their neasts) be prepared for them ; but these 

 never so much as lighten, but fly over the poole, 

 scarce staying an hour. About the sixth of March 

 following, there comes a pretty considerable flight, 

 of a hundred or more, and then they alight on the 

 hafts, and stay all day, but are gone again at night. 

 About our Lady-day, or sooner in a forward spring, 

 they come to stay for good, otherwise not till the 

 beginning of April, when they build their nests, 

 which they make not of stickes, but heath and 

 rushes, making them but shallow, and laying gene - 

 rally but /our eggs, three and five more rarely, 

 which are about the bignes of a small Hen egg. 

 The hafts or islands are prepared for them between 

 Michaelmas and Christmas, by cutting down the 

 reeds and rushes, and putting them aside in the 

 nookes and corners of the hafts, and in the valleys 

 to make them level ; for should they be permitted to 

 rot on the islands, the Pewits would not endure them. 



