Kittiwake, 533 



it utters, ' Kitti-aa, Kitti-aa,' which, Mr. Seebohm says, imagi- 

 nation likens to ' Get away, get away/ especially when the 

 intruder is near the nest.* Sir R. Payne-Gallwey gives a very 

 graphic account of the preparation of the nest in the breeding 

 season. He says : ' About the beginning of February they may 

 be seen to come and view their old nests to see whether the 

 storms have swept them away. Then they wheel round the 

 caves a few times and depart. Then they squabble over any 

 nests which may happen to have remained intact since the 

 previous spring, great chattering and disputing going on all the 

 while. Nodding and chattering ends in biting and fighting, in 

 violent struggles, often in clinging together, and falling and 

 rolling sometimes a hundred feet into the sea below. Laying 

 the foundation of a nest is an important and anxious piece of 

 architecture. Wet clay is brought and placed on the small 

 projecting piece of rock, often not more than six inches square. 

 Each time a fresh supply is fetched and laid down it undergoes 

 a process of hardening and consolidating by the little black feet 

 of the builder. Round and round he tramps, here a little and 

 there a little. If, as is sometimes the case, he has not room to 

 make a complete circuit, by reason of his tail striking the wall 

 of cliff, up and down he pats it smooth, now more clay, now 

 grass, then sea-weed, more tramping, and the nest is ready.'f in 

 France it is Mouette tridactyle ; in Italy, Gabbiano terragnala e 

 galetra ; in Sweden, Tre-tdig Mdse, ' Three-toed Gull ' ; but in 

 Portugal, in common with several other species of Gull, Gaivota. 



226. COMMON GULL (Laws canus). 



I doubt whether this species, numerous though it is, deserves 

 its trivial English name so much &&L.ridibundu8; but, perhaps, 

 in Wiltshire it may fairly be entitled our ' Common Gull.' In 

 the southern parts of the county it is very frequently met with, 

 and I have often seen it in North Wilts passing overhead, or 

 perched on the downs. It is also an indefatigable attendant on 



' British Birds,' vol. iii., p. 342. 



f ' The Fowler in Ireland,' pp. 169, 270. 



