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the shores ; but when the thaws have partially exposed the ground they return. At this season 

 they almost entirely desert the more northern sterile parts of Scotland, advance southward, and 

 are dispersed over the whole country. This species has a light buoyant flight, during which it 

 often inclines to either side. It walks and runs prettily with short steps, pats the sands at the 

 edge of the water with its feet, emits a shrill somewhat harsh cry, and is apt to give the alarm to 

 other birds at the approach of the sportsman. It is not, however, nearly so timid, or at least so 

 sensible of danger, as the larger Gulls, and, either in the fields or on the sea-shore, often allows a 

 person to come within shot. Often also, when one has been killed or wounded, its companions, 

 after flying off, collect again, hover around, or even alight, when some of them may often be 

 obtained. When feeding along with Rooks, in pasture-ground, they are often found to be less 

 wary than these birds, especially in places where they are not much liable to be molested. They 

 never, I think, molest any other bird, nor are they at all addicted to quarrelling among them- 

 selves. Their food consists of small fishes, such as sand-eels and young herrings, which they pick 

 from the water, first hovering with extended and elevated wings, then descending, spreading their 

 tail, and letting down their feet, with which I have often seen them pat the water, as if they 

 were running on land. They never plunge so as to be immersed, but merely seize on what comes 

 close to the surface. They also feed upon stranded fishes of large size, asterise, mollusca, shrimps, 

 and other small Crustacea. Sometimes also they pick up grain in the fields, and in a state of 

 domestication may be partly fed on bread. They are easily tamed ; but unless in a garden, or 

 where they are not liable to be teased, they are seldom found to live long in this condition." 



The Common Gull breeds on the sea-coast, occasionally, however, also on inland lakes, and 

 makes a somewhat carefully constructed nest amongst the drift stuff on the shore, in which it 

 deposits two or three eggs. Dresser, when collecting in Finland, generally found the latter 

 number in the nests of this species. Macgillivray, writing on their breeding-habits in Scotland, 

 says that about the latter end of April " they disappear from the interior, and betake themselves 

 to their breeding-places. In the Shetland and Orkney islands, in the Outer Hebrides, on the 

 northern and western coasts of Scotland, here and there in the rocky places along the eastern 

 shores, and much more rarely on the western coasts of England and Wales, they are then to be 

 found, often congregated in vast numbers, but also dispersed in pairs. The lower parts of craggy 

 cliffs, rocky peninsulas, and small unfrequented islands, are their favourite stations. I have often, 

 however, found their nests on the turf, along with those of the Herring-Gulls. They are com- 

 posed generally of fuci, occasionally of grass, bits of turf, and other vegetable substances. The 

 eggs, usually three, sometimes two, are of a broadly ovate form, olive-brown, yellowish brown, 

 oil-green, greenish grey, or greenish white, irregularly dotted and spotted with dark brown and 

 purplish grey, the markings generally larger and more numerous on those which have the 

 ground-colour deepest. They vary in length from two inches and one twelfth to two twelfths 

 more, and have an average breadth of an inch and a half." Mr. Robert Collett found it breeding 

 in Norway on the freshwater lakes, at an altitude of nearly 4000 feet above the sea-level, — as, for 

 instance, on the Bygdin Lake, on the Jotunfjeld, and on Jcederen he met with it nesting on the 

 tussocks in the marshes. On Gottland Dr. Ludwig Holtz found its nest on the drift stuff thrown 

 up by the tide, as well as on the sun-dried Zoster a marina, just below where the grass commences 

 to grow ; the nest itself is made with a neat foundation of dried grass. In one instance he found 



