Manchester Memoirs, Vol. Ix. (191 6), No. 3. 3 



ing the eggs and young. Here the birds' intelligence 

 fails them ; in spite of the fact that a brood is annually 

 destroyed they return again and again to the same spot. 



When the young are able to fly some of them move 

 to tidal estuaries or the shore, but others may never visit 

 the coast. It is not, of course, possible to make any 

 dogmatic statement about the movements of young birds ; 

 they may visit the coast and return inland many times ; 

 but this we do know, that so soon as young gulls are able 

 to leave the Cheshire gullery young birds may also be 

 seen feeding on the neighbouring meres, from which, 

 except for a few weeks, they are never absent. This, 

 however, is not the destination of all young birds reared 

 in Cheshire, for birds ringed at Delamere have been met 

 with in a variety of places. ■ After the breeding season 

 the Black-head is common in inland Cheshire, but is most 

 abundant in the river valleys or near large sheets of 

 water. Round Delamere the bird is known as the " sea- 

 crow," either from its habit of following the plough or 

 from its somewhat corvine voice. 



Not only in Cheshire but in most parts of our islands 

 this gull is steadily extending its inland range ; we may 

 now look upon the Black-head as an inland as well as a 

 maritime bird. It is not, however, this general change of 

 habit, which of course includes a change of diet, which I 

 wish to emphasise, but a secondary and local change 

 caused by the primary one. 



Anyone who has lived or stayed for any length of 

 time beside a tidal estuary or bay must be well aware 

 that this garrulous gull feeds at night as well as by day ; 

 tidal flats are at their best for a few hours twice in the 

 twenty-four, when the waters are receding, and the birds 

 if they can see at all do not waste those precious hours 

 of the ebb. Coastwise feeding gulls rest by day or night 



