NOTES AND QUERIES. 295 



and the youug ones may be seen about their nests, attended by the 

 parent birds. For some reason or other — probably for the want of suitable 

 ledges — the Herring Gulls do not appear to nest on the abrupt faces of 

 the cliffs, but in spots where land-slips have occurred, and where slopes 

 more or less covered with verdure, but at a very steep incline, have formed 

 amid the cliffs. In selecting such breeding-places the Herring Gulls have, 

 as might be expected, selected the more inaccessible slopes, and as far as 

 I could judge, walking below the cliffs, I did not notice any occupied 

 nesting-places that an ordinary rock-climber should attempt without the 

 aid of a rope from above. Great mortahty occurs amongst the young gulls 

 from the nests being placed on these steep inclines, for the young tempted 

 from their nests lose their foothold on the slippery grass, and slide and fall 

 on the beach below, where they are abandoned by the parent birds. In the 

 first week of July, this year, my companion and 1 counted over fifty dead 

 young ones in the course of our walk along the base of the cliffs, and we 

 saw two young Herring Gulls lose their foothold and come down, trying to 

 save themselves with expanded feet and their little apologies for wings 

 extended ; they reached the beach in safety, where we secured them, took 

 them home, and they are now flourishing in my companion's garden. 

 There is, however, one exception to the general rule of these gulls breeding 

 on the cliff-slopes, and that is a few pairs making their nests on the gravel 

 beach at the very base of the cliffs just above the line of ordinary high 

 water. The spots available are very few and restricted in area, and as they 

 can be reached at low-tide these nests are invariably plundered of the eggs. 

 My companion informed me that during the past seven years he had on 

 several occasions taken eggs from these nests on the shore. He is inclined 

 to think that the very great increase in the number of the Herring Gulls 

 since the Wild Birds Preservation Act came into force has led to the 

 crowding of the securer breeding stations, and that the gulls that nest on 

 the beach are the younger ones which have been unable to find nesting 

 room in the safer positions. It was satisfactory to learn, from my com- 

 panion's personal observation, that the number of Herring Gulls had 

 largely increased during the past ten years. I should estimate roughly 

 that not less than four hundred pairs of Herring Gulls nest in the cliffs 

 between Dover and St. Margaret's Bay. To ornithologists who reside in 

 the neighbourhood of London, and who may not have the opportunity of 

 visiting the more distant great rock nurseries of sea-fowl along our coasts, 

 I recommend a visit to these chffs, but care must be taken to time it with 

 due consideration of the tides, for a mistake might lead to an awkward 

 predicament, as at high-water the sea rises to the cliff, except in a few spots 

 where some of the gulls, as I have already mentioned, make their nests on 

 the gravel, A visitor to the cliff immediately below the South Foreland 

 Lighthouses will be further gratified by finding that a considerable colony of 



