324- LAIUP.E. 



There were nearly as many yoinig birds as eggs^ some of them 

 apparently ten days old ; all of these, even the youngest, when 

 pui'sued, fled to the lake, which was very rough. In one nest I 

 noticed a young bird which had just made its exit from the shell, 

 surrounded by four eggs, but for the shelter of which — warmth it 

 could not be called, as most of the eggs in the nests felt cool — it 

 must have perished, so cold was the day. I was surprised to observe 

 many young gulls lying dead, the only cause for which that 

 could be assigned was their being killed by old birds, not their 

 parents. Our boatman gave the species the character of being 

 very pugnacious, and we ourselves had ocular demonstration to 

 that effect. Not less than a thousand of these gulls appeared 

 here at one view, and their evolutions were extremely beautiful 

 and varied, more especially when the willows rising to the height 

 of about fifteen feet, and forming a background, afforded a rich 

 contrast to the elegant plumage of the birds as they gracefully 

 poised themselves, or winnowed the air immediately above their 

 nests ; and again, when they hovered over the water and dipped 

 their feet in the rising wave after the manner of the stormy petrel. 



We were highly gratified to learn fi'om the caretaker in charge 

 of Eam^s Island — with its two buildings of very opposite 

 character, one of the ancient Eound Towers, and a neat modern 

 cottage — that its noble proprietor, the late Lord O'Neill, had 

 given orders that the gulls and terns breeding there, should not 

 in any way be disturbed, the result of which was, that they had 

 become gradually more numerous, and were much' more so that 



birds be much disturbed), is smaller than the precediug (Hewitson, Eggs, &c. 

 p. 437). 



A man living on the INIagharee Islands, Tralee Bay, states of the eggs of 

 the " larger guUs " (not, of com-se, inclusive of L. ridibundus), that those of the 

 first laying are dark and much blotched ; of the second, much lighter in colour ; 

 and of the thu'd and last, neai'ly white, with one or two lai-ge dark spots (Mr. R. 

 Chute). 



The following note, obtained since the preceding was printed, may be added : — 

 October 1850.— Mr. John D. Ferguson, of Dunvegan Cottage, Skye, informs me 

 that his attention was called by the lighthouse-keeper at the island of Berneray, 

 to the eggs of the common guillemot becoming lighter in colom- and smaller iu 

 size each time for several layings ; a statement which my informant saw fully 

 verified. 



