518 The Zoologist — December, 1866, 



Letters on Ornithology. By Harry Blake-Knox, Esq. 



Letter IV. — British Larid.e. 

 Subfamily RissA. Species Larus tridactylus. 



A Natural History of the Kitlitvake Gull, with an Account of all its 

 Plumages and Transformations, from the Nestling to the Adult 

 Bird. 



" We shall here remark that too much caution cannot be observed with regard to 

 this tribe of birds; none perhaps have puzzled the naturalist more, from the variatioa 

 in plumage at different ages." — Montagu, Common Gull. 



Habits. — The kittiwake is one of our commonest east-coast gulls 

 during spring, summer and autumn, and is to be met with also, though 

 sparingly, throughout the winter. It generally arrives in our waters in 

 flocks from the end of March, breeding in considerable numbers on 

 the suitable islands of this coast, leaving again with the mackerel in 

 October. In its habits it may be said to be strictly gregarious, though 

 of course to be met with occasionally solitary. During summer and 

 autumn it attends upon the shoals of fry, feeding greedily upon them 

 when driven to the surface by their finny enemies, the mackerel, pol- 

 lack, porpoise, &c. : at these times it may be strictly termed an ocean 

 gull, rarely seeking the mainland shores like the other small gulls, the 

 blackheaded and common gull. It feeds till very late in the evening, 

 often being thus engaged at dusk, particularly in spring. In winter 

 and in early spring its habits are not at all those of the kittiwake, for 

 it will then seek the company of the other gulls, and frequent open 

 harbours and the coast in search of floating substances of food thrown 

 from vessels. I have always found it strictly a marine bird, never 

 seeking fresh water or the land and its ploughed fields. It is men- 

 tioned in Thompson's ' Natural History of Ireland,' that "One was 

 filled with earth-worms and earth (this bird was killed when following 

 the plough), and the bill of another contained some dry loau)y earth;" 

 and again, " The kittiwake being taken inland in the North has just 

 been mentioned, and with respect to the county of Wexford we are 

 told that it ' sometimes wanders inland in search of worms.' " I con- 

 sider this habit decidedly the exception, and not the rule, for the kitti- 

 wake even avoids the sea-strands of the County Dublin, and may well 

 be called the ocean or rock gull. So gregarious is it in its habits that 

 flocks of thousands associate and fish together, and during a "play" of 



