'"L 17 ,905 



The Black-hacks of the Bass. 49 



in consequence, and since that time there have been but 

 two or three pairs of either Herring Gulls or Lesser 

 Black-backs about the Eock." 



In June 1869 I landed on the Bass and found the Gulls 

 just as Booth has described, that is to say, one or two pairs 

 of L. fuscus and a few of L. argentatus; and I heard the 

 same account of the result of the poison laid down for the 

 Jackdaws. 



The Scottish Naticralist for 1873 (vol. ii. pp. 54-56) 

 contains some " Notes on the Birds of the Bass Eock " by 

 Mr James Lumsden, in which it is implied that the 

 Herring Gull, the Kittiwake, the Common Gull, the Great 

 Black-back, and the Lesser Black-back all bred there at that 

 time ; but seeing his list of birds is made up of " those 

 observed or heard of from authentic sources," during a 

 visit to the Eock in August (1872), it may, as far as the 

 present inquiry is concerned, be dismissed without further 

 comment.^ 



On 30th July 1873 the Berwickshire Naturalists' Club 

 visited the Bass, but the account of the excursion {Proceed- 

 ings, vol. vii. p. 17), instead of telling us what birds were 

 seen on that occasion, adopts, practically verbatim, the list 

 given in the Statistical Account of 1845 (to which I have 

 already referred), and that, too, without acknowledgment. 



On 24th May 1883 I spent five or six hours on the Bass, 

 and paid particular attention to the gulls, with the view of 

 obtaining identified eggs. There were only two or three 

 pairs of Lesser Black-backs to be seeo, and I succeeded in 

 watching one of the birds on to its nest. An egg taken 

 measures 2*7 X 1"8 in.; another Bass egg is 26 x 1*8 in. 

 There were a good many (10 to 15) pairs of Herring Gulls 

 about, and several were watched to their nests also. On 

 5th June 1884 the numbers were practically unaltered, and 

 five or six years later they seemed still to be much the 

 same, at anyrate in the case of the Black-backs, though 

 the Herring Gulls were liable to some fluctuation. It was 



1 A random statement by Col. Drummond-Hay {Scottish Naturalist, 1881, 

 p. 5) that the nearest breeding-stations of the Great Black-backed Gull to 

 the Tay are the Bass and the Isle of May may also be safely neglected. 

 VOL. XVI. F 



