Northern Breeding Sites of Gulls. 149 



to our knowledge of British Vegetation, but has given a new 

 outlook and a renewed incentive to outdoor work. 



PALMAM QUI MERUIT FERAT. 



Salix caprea. 



False ' palm ' ! but what matters the name 

 When the wand that we bear in our hand 



Is jewelled with topazes, lambent with flame, 

 And the symbol we all understand ? 



This year on your sabbath you failed : 

 Both sun and your bees were a-shroud ; 



But now with each tassel unsealed 



They have come to your call in a cloud ! 



Now by day a fair buzz-tree you make ! 



And by beam of a moon that is ' new,' 

 A glamoursome, luminous brake. 



Moths better than I know it's you ! 



May-day, 1917. F. Arnold Lees. 



NORTHERN BREEDING SITES OF GULLS. 



The paper in the Journal of the Board of Agriculture on ' Wild Birds' 

 Eggs 'was submitted to the authorities of the British Museum for correction 

 and revision before publication. Unfortunately the standard of accuracy 

 is what one might have expected from the Ornithological Department of 

 the British Museum, and as you have quoted some passages relating to 

 the Northern counties, it is perhaps best to correct some of the more 

 glaring errors at once. The statements that ' probably every seaboard 

 county of England and Wales except Suffolk, has gnlleries, but of the 

 inland counties it is believed that there is a gullery only in Staffordshire ' 

 are both erroneous. The two Staffordshire gulleries referred to (Norbury 

 and Aqualate Mere) were alternative sites occupied by the same colony, 

 but as no birds have bred at either place since 1794, our food supplies 

 are not likely to be increased from this source ! This information is to 

 be found in both of the more recent works on Staffordshire birds, Mc- 

 Aldowies' Birds of Staffordshire (1893) and Masetield's paper in the Victoria 

 History of the County of Stafford (1908), but apparently the researches of 

 the British Museum authorities do not cover the last hundred and twenty 

 years. The eggs of the Great Black-backed Gull (L. mannus) are not to 

 be found in any part of England or Wales in numbers sufficient to have 

 any value as a source of food. Under the head of Lancashire, you quote : 

 ' Walney Island and Winmarleigh Moss ' as breeding places. Winmarleigh 

 Moss was long ago abandoned for Cockerham INIoss and I believe the Gulls 

 have ceased to breed even at the latter place for some years. 



Under Lincolnshire ' Brigg and Twigmoor ' are quoted. There are 

 two colonies in Lincolnshire : neither is at Brigg, Twigmoor being about 

 three miles distant, while Scotton Common is about ten miles away as the 

 crow flies. While five comparatively small Yorkshire colonies are specified, 

 only one of the many large breeding stations in Northumberland is men- 

 tioned, and only four for Cumberland. 



Were it not for the fact that the general inaccuracy of the list discredits 



1918 May 1. 



