396 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
subsequently studied the philosophy of this method of digging bait, and 
have come to the conclusion that certain birds are a great deal wiser than 
certain bipeds without feathers. If you will take a sharpened stick and 
drive it into the ground a number of times, in aspot which is prolific with 
worms, and then tap on the ground with the stick for a few minutes, you 
will find that the worms will come to the surface, and that they will come up 
through the holes which you have made. I account for it by the supposition 
that the tapping of the stick somehow affects the worms the same as the 
patter of rain, and it is a well-known fact that worms come to the surface 
of the ground when it rains. The antics of the Woodcocks after they had 
made their borings, then, were simply mimetic, and intended to delude the 
worms into the belief that it was raining in the upper world. The worms, 
being deceived, came up and were devoured. All this may seem ridiculous, 
but, if it is not true, will some naturalist please state how a Woodcock can 
grasp and devour a worm when its bill is confined in a solid, tight-fitting 
tunnel of soil, and also how it is enabled to know the exact spot where it 
may sink its bill and strike a worm? And further, of all those who have 
seen a Woodcock feeding, how many ever saw it withdraw a worm from 
the ground with its bill ? 
[The extremity of the bill of the Woodcock is very flexible and 
sensitive, and we have no doubt, from what we have observed, that the 
bird is able to grasp a worm with it below the surface, guided by its sense 
of touch only.—Ep.] 
A Breeding-place of the Black-headed Gull in King’s Co.— On the 
11th of May last, in company with two ornithological friends, I visited 
what I think may be considered the largest breeding-place of the Black- 
headed Gull, Larus ridibundus, in Ireland, and one which has not hitherto 
been mentioned in print. This gullery is on the property of Lord Digby, 
in King’s County, and lies two miles from Tullamore, on one of those 
extensive bogs so common in Ireland. Killeemore Bog is some 1200 acres 
in extent, and is covered with heaths of different kinds, very wet in some 
places, with small floating patches surrounded by water, in which grow 
quantities of the common bog-bean, Menyunthes trifoliata. It is in such 
places that the gulls seem most to congregate, as many as seven or eight 
nests being placed on many of these little islets, some of them perhaps not 
four yards in diameter. Although the nests may be found scattered all 
over the bog, in several such places as described they are crowded close 
together ; and when standing on the outskirts, while my friends were in 
the centre of the bog, I could compare the clamour of the gulls only to the 
distant noise of the sea when breaking gently on the shore. The nests 
for the most part were built.of the stems of the bog-bean, mixed with 
heather, and contained three eggs, but on two occasions we counted four in 
