found at St. Abb's Head. 75 



tural cackle resembling kaak-ka-kaak, varied only by a sharp 

 loud scream like pee-ul, filled the air : some took to wing and 

 hovered overhead in majestic sweeps ; others leaving their nests 

 crowned some distant pinnacle far beyond the reach of* an ordi- 

 nary charge, but not of the deadly wire cartridge, as three indi- 

 viduals found to their cost. The first to notify the appearance of 

 danger, they are the last to indicate its disappearance. The natu- 

 rally watchful habits of these birds seem to be increased during 

 the breeding season ; for often, when shooting on Tyne Sands in 

 summer, I have been pursued by these birds with loud outcries, 

 although they were four or five miles distant from the Bass, 

 which is a favourite breeding-place ; there they construct their 

 bulky nests amongst the herbage, or in holes dug in the turf by 

 the solan geese for building materials, whilst at St. Abb's they 

 choose only those precipices which abound in fissures clothed 

 with herbage, and it was on one of this sort, called the Chaunler 

 Rock, that I observed three young birds as large as partridges 

 running about the friendly covert : rocks of this kind are often 

 accessible to the bold fisherman, who frequently takes both eggs 

 and young ones amidst the loud outcries and threatening swoops 

 of the parents. This bird is not unfrequently seen foraging in the 

 interior of East Lothian, and fishing in theTyne and other streams. 

 No common gulls {Larus canus) breed about the Head, but 

 there is a most extensive colony on the Ernesheugh, about two 

 miles to the westward; their nests are placed on the grassy 

 ledges ; and although these birds abound along the eastern shores 

 of East Lothian and Berwickshire throughout the year, yet this 

 is the only breeding-place known to me in the south-east of 

 Scotland. During the greater part of the year these birds find 

 their chief subsistence not only along shore, but also in the fields 

 in the interior of the counties of Berwick and East Lothian. 

 Dr. Hood, Aimesfield, near Coldingham, informed me that they 

 do great injury to the turnip crop, especially during hard 

 weather, and yet, judging by their droppings, such food is not 

 readily digested by them. Similar complaints have been urged 

 against them in Fife : — can it be that the draining and consequent 

 amelioration of our climate and soil, and the more frequent stir- 

 ring of the latter, have of late years induced a larger proportion 

 of gulls to remain with us during winter than can possibly find 

 a supply of food on our shores ; and so, when the ordinary supply 

 of worms and grubs is locked up by the frost, the famished birds 

 resort to turnip-fields* ? 



* The changes which the tastes of some birds undergo are very remark- 

 able : it is only within the last fifteen years or so that the rooks attacked 

 the turnip-fields in this neighbourhood, and it is about forty or fifty years 

 since red grouse were observed to eat oats. See Mag. Nat. Hist. New 

 Series, vol. i. p. 118. 



