The Black-hachs of the Bass. 43 



station on our east coast south of the Moray Firth. It is 

 quite conceivable, of course, that a pair may now and then 

 take it into their heads to breed in the neighbourhood of 

 their winter haunts on the shores of south-east Scotland, 

 but such cases, if they do occur, must be extremely rare. 

 A few apparently adult, but non-breeding birds, not un- 

 frequently remain behind throughout the summer months. 



The earliest reference I can find to the breeding of any 

 of the larger gulls on the Bass is contained in Professor 

 John Walker's account of the Eock, published along with 

 his other "Essays" on Natural History in 1808, but written, 

 it is supposed, probably not later than 1774. Walker there 

 states that on the occasion of his visit to the Bass — date not 

 given — he found two birds which Eay, who was there on 

 19th August 1661, did not notice, one of them being "Lams 

 fuscus'' — he gives it no English name. At first sight it 

 might be thought that we have here a record of the Lesser 

 Black-backed Gull; but it has to be remembered that in 

 this country the name L. fuscus was at that time errone- 

 ously applied to the Herring Gull — see the works of 

 Pennant, Bewick, and Montagu. It is therefore highly 

 probable that Walker meant the Herring Gull ; indeed, 

 Fleming in his " Zoology " of the Bass (1847), assumes, 

 without comment, that this is so. 



Disregarding, then, Walker's observation, the first pub- 

 lished definite record of Black-backs nesting on the Bass, 

 seems to be that contained in the following statement made 

 by Selby in 1833 in his " British Ornithology " (vol. ii. 

 p. 508). We there read that the '' breeding-stations " of the 

 Great Black-backed Gull " are on the Steep-holmes and 

 Lunday Islands in the Bristol Channel, Souliskerry in the 

 Orkneys, the Bass Island in the Firth of Forth, and one or 

 two other stations upon the Scottish coast." 



The next piece of evidence, in order of publication, is 

 contained in the very interesting account of a partially 

 domesticated Great Black-back, communicated by Dr 

 Patrick Neill of Canonmills, Edinburgh, to Audubon, who 

 printed it in the third volume (pp. 312-315) of his " Or- 

 nithological Biography," issued in 1835. Neill's account 



