246 WILD SPORTS OF THE HIGHLANDS chap. 



that approaches them, or whose presence seems to threaten 

 danger. I once took a boat to a mountain lake in Inverness- 

 shire, where thousands of these birds bred on some small islands 

 which dot the surface of the water.^ The gulls, though not 

 exactly attacking me, dashied unceasingly so close to my head 

 that I felt the wind of their wings, and I sometimes really 

 feared some one more venturous than the rest might drive his 

 bill into my eyes. They had probably never had a visitor to 

 their islands before. The shepherds, having a kind of super- 

 stitious dread of the place, from its being supposed to be haunted 

 ground, never attempt to eross to the islands by swimming or 

 wading. The greater part of the largest island was absolutely 

 covered with eggs, laid in small hollows scraped by the birds, 

 with little pretensions to any other kind of nest. I could 

 scarcely walk without treading on them. Close to the edge of 

 the water, indeed so near that the nest was always wet, was the 

 domicile of a pair .of black-throated divers, or loon, with a couple 

 of long greenish-coloured eggs. The, old birds swam out to a 

 short distance, and watched me with, great interest, uttering 

 their strange hollow call. There were several smaller islands, 

 or points of rock, appearing above the water, on each of which 

 a pair of black-backed gulls had made their nest, constructed 

 with more care and skill than those of their black -headed 

 cousins. These large birds allowed none of the others to 

 approach them, and each couple kept undisputed possession of 

 their own particular kingdom, not joining in the same sociable 

 kind of society as other gulls. When I approached the black- 

 backed gulls' nest,, they did not dash round me like the smaller 

 kind, but flew in circles at some height, uttering a loud warlike 

 kind of shout, much like the voice of a human being. The 

 eggs of the black-headed gulls are exactly like those of the 

 common lapwing, and are equally good eating ; so I took home 

 a great number, selecting them from the nests that had only 

 one or two eggs, knowing that the owners of these would not 

 have commenced sitting. I returned in a week, and found 

 every nest with its full number in it. I was walking along the 



' Mr. St. John mentions the following as being foundi in Moray: "The little gull 

 (Larus minuius), shot In Spynie, Morayshire, early in May ; L. cafiistrntus (brown-headed 

 gull) ; L. ridibundus (black -headed gull) ; L. tridactylus (kittiwalte) ; L. canus (common 

 gull) ; L. argentatus (herring gull) ; L. fusfus (lesser black-backed guH) ; L, marinus 

 (great black-backed gull), Tiests inland." 



