Breeding -grounds of the Rosy Gull. 



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The Rosy Gull lays sometimes two, but nearly always 

 three, eggs ; four are said to be found not uncommonly, but 

 I doubt the fact. The eggs, as might be expected from so 

 beautiful a bird, are very handsome, and, happily for the 

 collector, are quite unlike those of the Black-capped Tern. 

 I measured carefully * 36 eggs of the Gull and 25 of the 

 Tern, with the following results : — 



The eggs of the Rosy Gull are not only larger and in 

 particular broader than those of its neighbour, but are of 

 quite a different shape, being extremely round for Gulls' 

 eggs, with the small end by no means pronounced. They are 

 much darker and more evenly coloured than any other eggs 

 of the Order known to me, being of a beautiful deep rich 

 olive-green, without any of the greyish or sandy shade so 

 common in eggs of Sterna and other members of the Order. 

 They are spotted, especially near the larger end, with choco- 

 late-brown (not earthy brown), the somewhat clouded spots 

 being generally some 3-5 mm. in diameter, and not so 

 sharply denned on the dark ground-colour as is usual in 

 Gavian eggs. The spots are of unequal intensity, some 

 darker, some paler, with every intergradation ; they cannot 

 be divided into two sharply defined groups as in other 



* I had no means of ■weighing- them. 



