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they are often much later fledged, owing to the poorer classes taking their eggs, which are used 

 for culinary purposes, and are considered a dainty. The eggs are generally taken twice, and the 

 third lot are left to be hatched out. The peasants on the coast generally know well enough how 

 many pairs of large Gulls breed on their islands, and do not like strangers to molest the old 

 birds. When the young birds are big, though unable to fly, the peasants on the east coast hunt 

 them down ; and this sport continues from the middle of July until the young birds can fly. 

 When any one goes ashore on the islands the young Gulls hide in the crevices of the rocks, or 

 try to escape by swimming, but both on the land and on the water prove an easy prey, and are 

 knocked down with the oars or caught and their necks twisted. The young are used for food, 

 and are considered especially good eating ; but the full-grown and old birds are never eaten, as 

 they are tough and fishy. One would suppose that, being subjected to so great pursuit, the 

 large Gulls would decrease in number; for the eggs and young oiLarus argentatus and L.fuscus, 

 and even of L. canus, are taken ; but this is not the case ; and the reason, I take it, is the fact 

 that the old birds are never killed, and a few young ones always escape. The revenue derived 

 by the peasants from the Gulls is not so small, as in some places hundreds of eggs and scores of 

 young birds are taken." In Finland it is not common, and Dresser did not meet with it breeding 

 on the northern coast. Mr. Sabanaeff, in the notes he has sent us on the avifauna of Northern 

 and Central Russia, only refers to one having been obtained near Sarepta by Mr. Bickbeil ; and 

 Mr. Taczanowski says that it is very rare in Poland, and that he himself has only on two or three 

 occasions seen immature birds on the Vistula. There is not a Polish-killed specimen in any of 

 the collections in that country. It appears, according to Borggreve, on the North-German coasts 

 after having bred ; and many winter there, visiting at that season the ponds and lakes near the 

 sea. In Denmark, Mr. Benzon informs us, it is found fishing all along the coasts during the 

 cold season, but is very rarely met with during the summer. It is said to breed on the west 

 coast of Jutland ; but he (Mr. Benzon) has never obtained eggs from there. Baron von Droste 

 Hulshoff doubts that it ever breeds on the Dutch coast, and states that, though immature, non- 

 breeding birds are observed during the summer, the adult birds and young of the year do not 

 appear before September. 



Baron De Selys Longchamps writes that it is common in autumn and winter on the sea- 

 coasts of Belgium, but only occurs accidentally, after a storm, in the interior. On the Meuse 

 and the Moselle it is very rare ; and M. Holandre only observed one adult and several young birds 

 on the latter river. According to MM. Degland and Gerbe it both breeds and is found in France 

 during the season of migration ; large flocks pass along the coasts of the north of France in the 

 months of September, October, and December. In the south of France it is rare, and only young 

 birds are met with; and those found in Italy and Sicily during the winter are also young birds. 

 It breeds in the departments of La Manche, Hautes-Pyrenees (?), at Alderney, and on the rocks 

 of Cape St. Martin, between Biarritz and la Chambre-d' Amour. In Portugal it is rare ; but in 

 Spain, Mr. Howard Saunders informs us, it is not uncommon in immature plumage near 

 Gibraltar, though adults are rare; and, according to Major Irby, immature birds are occasionally 

 met with in winter in the Straits of Gibraltar, but he never saw an adult bird. In Sardinia, 

 according to Cara, it has twice been obtained in the winter season ; and Doderlein speaks of it as 

 one of the rarest Gulls which visit the coasts of Sicily in winter. Lindermayer records it as very 



