358 LAllIDiE. 



about the face of the cKffs ; but as jackdaws likewise build there, 

 the evidence is insuificient for the conviction of the gulls : — it is 

 not, however, improbable that they may occasionally pick up grain. 

 On examining the stomach of one bird shot in a field here, I 

 found it, with the exception of a little vegetable matter, filled with 

 terrestrial coleopterous insects. 



1833-1843. — At the noble range of headlands from about Ben- 

 gore eastward of the Giant's Causeway to Downhill, herring-gulls 

 generally build, where the upper portion of the face of the cliffs 

 presents here and there a little ledge on which a nest can be placed 

 — in the seasons when I visited Fairhead, the grandest of all the 

 headlands, they did not nidify there. About Carrick-a-rede, and 

 the adjacent Sheep Island, the basaltic and chalk clifi's were 

 selected indiscriminately for their nests, and the White Cliffs (as 

 they are called) of the latter rock, west of Dunluce, displayed 

 many of them in 1833. Their nests here are very large, and I 

 have been surprised to see some near the Causeway constructed of 

 small sticks, or thick stems of heather, either of which it would be 

 difficult to obtain in quantity suited to the purpose. Viewed as 

 we sail past the Causeway headlands, these birds have an elegant 

 appearance, dotted over the black and sterile faces of the cliffs, 

 where an occasional little ledge affords' room for a nest ; but it 

 must be said that they look only coldly beautiful, in comparison 

 with what they do at some other localities, as about the cliffs near 

 the Temple at Downhill, where the rocks, though little more than 

 lichen-covered — yellow and grey of various tints — are with occa- 

 sional tufts of herbage, many-hued, and present a warm and fur- 

 nished aspect. Here the gulls with their full snowy breasts look 

 beautiful and in keeping with all around, as they are perched about 

 or reposing on their nests. 



The kittiwake does not breed at any of the localities wliich 

 have just been mentioned in connection with the herring-gull ; 

 but in the island of Eathlin, we are told that the latter " occupied 

 the summits of the chffs tenanted below by the kittiwake. Theii" 

 nests, like those of the common gull, were placed far beyond reach, 

 except by lowering a man by a rope. Besides being found on the 



