282 THE BROWN-HEADED GULL 



resembles a laugh. The systematic name, ridibundus, which has 

 the same meaning, is by general consent confined to this. The 

 reader, therefore, must bear in mind that though the term ridi- 

 bundus wUl bear no translation but ' laughing ', the name of the 

 Laughing Gull is Larus atricapilla, which can mean only ' Black- 

 Headed Gull ' ; a paradoxical statement, perhaps, but one which 

 it is necessary to make, or the young student will probably fall into 

 error. 



Brown-Headed Gull is the most appropriate of all the above names, 

 at least in summer, for at this period both male and female are 

 best distinguished by the deep brown colour of the head and upper 

 part of the neck. 



This is one of the most frequent of the Gulls, to be sought for 

 in the breeding season not on the rocky shore among cliffs, but on 

 low flat salt marshes on the coast and in fresh-water marshes far 

 inland. Early in spring large numbers of Brown-Headed Gulls 

 repair to their traditional breeding-grounds and wander over the 

 adjoining country in search of food, which consists of worms and 

 grubs. From the assiduity with which they resort to arable land 

 and follow the plough, they have been called Sea Crows. In April 

 and May they make their simple preparations for laying their 

 eggs by trampling down the broken tops of reeds and sedges, and 

 so forming a slight concavity. The number of eggs in each nest 

 is generally three, and as a large number of birds often resort 

 to the same spot, the collecting of these eggs becomes an 

 occupation of importance. By some persons they are considered 

 a delicacy, and, with the eggs of the Redshank, are substituted for 

 Plovers' eggs ; but to a fastidious palate they are not acceptable, 

 and far inferior to an egg from the poultry yard. Willughby 

 describes a colony of Black-Caps on a small island in a marsh or 

 fish pond, in the county of Stafford, distant at least thirty miles 

 from the sea. He says that when the young birds had attained 

 their fuU size, it was the custom to drive them from the island into 

 nets disposed along the shore of the lake. The captured birds were 

 fattened on meat and garbage, and sold for about fourpence or 

 fivepence each (a goodly price in those days, 1676). The average 

 number captured every year was 1200, returning to the proprietor 

 an income of about ^^15. In The Catalogue of Norfolk and 

 Suffolk Birds, it is stated that precisely the same sum is paid 

 for the privilege of collecting the eggs from Scoulton Mere, in 

 Norfolk. Towards the end of July, when the young are fully 

 fledged, all the birds, old and young, repair to the sea, and scatter 

 themselves in small flocks to all parts of the coast, preferring a low 

 sandy shore, or the mouth of a tidal river, as the Thames and the 

 Clyde, where they are of common occurrence. They also accom- 

 pany shoals of herrings and other small fish, often congregating 

 with other species in countless numbers. 



