EGGS AND EGG-COLLECTING. 89 
brown. Sometimes the markings take the form of 
streaks, The eggs, although as a rule darker than those 
of the Herring Gull, are very difficult to distinguish, and I 
have found no safe method short of watching the parent 
birds on the nest. 
THE GREAT BLAOK-BACKED GULL 
Tue flat-topped summits of rocks, stacks, and high mari- 
time cliffs are the usual situation for this Gull’s nest ; how- 
ever, I have met with it on comparatively low rocky islets 
in Highland sea-lochs. It does not breed on the East 
Coast of England. Its nest is made of bits of heather, 
dead grass, seaweed, and sometimes a few feathers, and 
varies in size. The eggs number three, but sometimes only 
two are found, greyish-brown or stone colour, tinged with 
olive and spotted with blackish-brown and dark grey. 
THE BLACK GROUSE. 
Tuts bird places its nest amongst deep heather, long grass, 
and rushes, ferns, and brambles, in suitable moorland parts 
of England, Wales, and Scotland. It is simply a hollow 
lined with a few bits of fern, heath, or dead grass. The 
eggs number six to ten, or even more, yellowish-white to 
buff, spotted with rich reddish-brown. I have generally 
found it through putting the hen off her nest, 
THE MARSH WARBLER. 
A sirvation such as that afforded by a stunted bush over- 
grown with weeds and close to water of some kind, chiefly 
