322 LARID^. 



THE BLACK-HEADED GULL. 



Red-legged Gull."^ 



Larus ridibunchts, Linu. 



Is common and resident. 



This is the common gull ' of Belfast Bay, and of the oozy or 

 sandy estuaries and marine loughs of at least the northern half 

 of Ireland. Great numbers may be seen frequenting such 

 localities daily throughout the year, excepting at the period of 

 the breeding season. 



From the circumstance of this species breeding inland, and 

 its eggs and young being in request for the table in the good 

 old times, we have had more ample information respecting its 

 economy at an early period than of any other of its tribe. In 

 Plot^s 'Natural History of Staffordshire' (1686), there is a very 

 full account of this bird given, which has been often copied,t or 

 the substance of it published in a condensed form" (by Bewick, 

 &c.). Sheppard and Whitear particularly notice a breeding- 

 haunt in jSTorfoIk, in their memoir on the birds of that county, 

 published in the Linnean Transactions (vol. xv. p. 52). J The 

 Bishop of Norwich, in his 'Eamiliar History of Birds' (vol. ii. 

 p. 246), introduces an ample description of a great breeding-place 

 at the present time in the same county. 



Breeding -Jiamits. — This gull breeds throughout Ireland in 

 similar localities to those described in the works referred to. On 

 the 27th of June, 1832, when at Portlough, near Dunfanaghy, 

 in the north-west of Donegal, covering perhaps a hundred acres, 

 I went in a corraffh to a little islet about fifty or sixty yards from 

 the shore, on which black-headed gulls were breeding, and found 

 their nests and eggs : the nests were formed negligently of reeds 



* Pirre auci Pirre-maw are sometimes applied to it on the Antrim coast. 



t See Stanley's ' Familiar History of Birds ;' Garner's ' Nat. Hist, of Stafford- 

 sliire ' (1844), &c. 



\ This is copied verhaiim by YarreU. 



