BIRD LIFE ON THE SALTEES AND THE KERAGHS. 95 
backs along our coasts. In the Co. Waterford this species 
seldom occurs at the breeding time, except in the Waterford 
river, where numbers may be seen on the wing about thirty 
miles from the Saltees while their mates or relations are 
hatching there. The Herring Gull, however, breeds numerously 
along the Co. Waterford cliffs, and is the only species of Gull 
that does so. On the South Saltee the nests of both species 
are intermixed, but large colonies of each species may be 
seen separately in places; one little valley or hollow with its 
flanking ridges being tenanted by Lesser Blackbacks almost 
exclusively. 
On the 14th May both species were laying or commencing to 
hatch. During my visit from the 26th to the 29th May last 
these Gulls were almost all hatching, and I saw but one clutch of 
young ones out, the season being a late one, while on the 21st 
and 22nd June, 1883, almost all the Gulls of these two species 
had young ones. 
During a cold storm last May the Gulls were exceedingly 
slow to leave their eggs, and returned to them while I was still 
near. 
On the same visit my friends Mr. Barrington and Mr. White 
found three nests of the Greater Black-backed Gulls; two of 
them, containing three eggs, each were near the summits of rocky 
brows at the south end of the island; and the third, which held 
but two eggs, was far out on a lower promontory near the great 
colony of Lesser Blackbacks, but apart from any nest of theirs. 
There were pellets of young rabbits’ fur and bones near all the 
three nests, and the eggs they contained were about half incubated 
on the 26th and 27th May. The Greater Blackbacks were very 
wary, quitting their eggs as soon as they saw a human form 
moving. 
It is stated in the fourth edition of Yarrell that I believe the 
Common Gull breeds on the Saltees. I am sorry to have to 
renounce this belief. On the 14th May, 1888, when we visited 
the Saltees, one of my companions gave me three Gulls’ eggs, 
found ‘‘on the hill where the Gulls breed.” They measure 
respectively 2°63 X 1°63, 2°46 X 1°7,2°36 x 1°63 inches. I sent 
them to Mr. Howard Saunders, who kindly inspected them and 
wrote thus :— 
“ As certainly as any Gull’s eggs can be named without proof, 
