22O Among the Birds in Northern Shires. 



stantial and composed of pieces of turf, sea-weed, 

 stalks of herbage and grass. The eggs are three or 

 four in number, and subject to an incredible amount 

 of variation in colour greens, olives, browns, and 

 grays of almost every possible shade representing 

 the shell tints; browns and grays the markings, 

 which take the form of round spots, blotches, streaks, 

 either evenly distributed over most of the surface, 

 scattered here and there, or forming zones round the 

 end. Right through the summer these Gulls are 

 employed in rearing their young, the period being 

 unusually prolonged because so many of the first 

 clutches of eggs are taken for culinary and other 

 purposes. During the latter part of August and 

 throughout September these Gulls and their young 

 leave the islands and work their way southwards, 

 scattering far and wide over the seas, following the 

 shoals of herrings and sprats and other fish, some of 

 them possibly wandering as far as the Spanish and 

 north-west African coasts. A few Herring Gulls 

 breed here and there among the other species, but 

 this bird has very few large colonies in the northern 

 shires. This is the one species of Gull that breeds 

 on the south coast of Devon, and there its colonies 

 are larger than any we have visited elsewhere in 

 the British Islands. Scattered pairs, however, may 

 be met with here and there along the coasts, and 

 in some few inland spots throughout the northern 



