78 British Birds, with their Nests and Eggs 



of the eyes, over the crown to the upper back, down the cheeks and along the 

 sides of the chest to the flanks, with the upper and under tail-coverts, is spotted 

 and streaked with brown ; the throat and under side white ; the tail white, except 

 for a broad sub-terminal bar of brownish-black ; the mantle brownish-grey, variegated 

 and margined with brownish-white ; primaries chiefly sooty brown, with paler inner 

 webs ; secondaries brown, with grey bases ; bill flesh colour, black anteriorly. 



By the time the bird is three or four months old, the brown feathers in the 

 back scapulars and wing-coverts have begun to be replaced by the French-grey of the 

 adult. In the coming spring when the Gull moults, or partially moults, probably 

 for the first time, many of the brown feathers in the head and neck, the rump, and 

 upper tail-coverts are exchanged for white, but some streaked ones still remain ; 

 more grey appears on the back and wing-coverts, and most of the inner primaries 

 have become grey ; bill more flesh-coloured, and the legs and feet yellowish. 



After the moult in their second autumn — when over two years old — the birds 

 approximate the winter garb of the adult, in having some brown streaks on the 

 neck ; but the sides of the breast, the upper wing-coverts, the under wing-coverts, 

 axillaries and under tail-coverts still retain traces of brown ; the tail-bar is much 

 narrowed, being more reduced on the external than on the central feathers ; bill 

 and legs greener ; the outer primaries want, however, the white sub-terminal spot. 

 Their next moult, when they put on their nuptial dress, at the age of thirty-three 

 to thirty-four months, sees all the brown gone and the primary markings of the 

 adult attained. 



After rearing their brood, the young parents assume their first adult winter 

 plumage, which is a resumption of the greyish-brown streaks and spottings on the 

 head and neck ; while the legs and feet become paler. 



The Common Gull feeds on anything almost that presents itself: fishes — 

 especially young herrings and sand-eels, which it captures on the wing by dropping 

 down on them without plunging beneath the surface — and Crustacea of all sorts ; 

 among the jetsam likewise of the sea-shore after a storm, they find a feast in the 

 sea-urchins, dead fishes, and even the carcases of drowned animals thrown on the 

 beach. During winter and spring they roam far inland in large flocks, mainly 

 composed of immature birds, and may be seen feeding by the side of rivers and 

 meres, or following the plough, doing the farmer a good turn by industriously 

 gathering the worms and grubs as they are turned up. 



" These flocks," as Macgillivray writes, " may be met with here and there at 

 long intervals in all the agricultural districts, not only in the neighbourhood of 

 the sea, but in parts most remote from it. Although they are more numerous in 

 stormy weather, it is not the tempest alone that induces them to advance inland ; 



