Birds. 883 



ing to be carried, in small bundles, such as a man could bear, on an 

 average for half a mile), they would probably have been sold for four 

 times the sum. To these I may add that nettles extensively abound, 

 and also that the common fern is to be met with here, which latter 

 plant is almost peculiar to a dry soil. 



No one, who formerly knew this moss, and has witnessed the recent 

 remarkable change, doubts for a moment that it has all been entirely 

 effected by the dung of these birds, deposited on the moss during the 

 breeding season. For as far as the nests of these birds have extended, 

 and even somewhat farther, the change in the herbage may be dis- 

 tinctly traced ; and as the gulls are yearly increasing, their breeding 

 dominions must proportionably extend, until the cultivation of the 

 moss abridges their territories, and eventually drives them to seek 

 some other retreat. In the latter part of the month of May, or in the 

 early part of the month of June, dependant in some degree on the sea- 

 son, this breeding colony of black-headed gulls is deserving of a visit, 

 both from the ornithologist and agriculturist. The former will occu- 

 py a few hours agreeably in collecting eggs, materially differing in 

 colour, although the produce of the same birds ; at the same time he 

 will have ocular proof of the varying plumage of the young birds, 

 during their immature state. The latter may derive a salutary lesson, 

 as he witnesses the wonderful change which the application of a suit- 

 able manure will produce on a soil even unprepared by any cultiva- 

 tion. If such an important alteration in the herbage can be effected 

 by the excrement of this bird in an undrained morass, one third, if 

 not one half of which, to the depth of eight or ten feet, if compressed 

 by a machine of any considerable power, would be found to consist 

 of water ; — surely he would be constrained at once to come to this 

 conclusion, that the application of this valuable manure, in proper 

 quantities, to a soil prepared by a judicious system of drainage and 

 cultivation, would force the most luxuriant crops of every species of 

 agricultural produce which the English farmer ever wishes to raise. 

 But I may, perhaps, be allowed to state, that this bird's dung, or, if 

 you please, call it British guano, is not here, on this moss, so spar- 

 ingly used as many persons tell us the Peruvian, Bolivarian, or even 

 African guano should be. Any person who has ever visited a well- 

 stocked rookery about the time the young birds take wing, or what is 

 commonly called the shooting season, is well aware of the strong 

 odour that assails his olfactory nerves, as he passes from tree to tree 

 in search of his black game. But the stench which arises from the 

 breeding ground of these gulls, at the time to which I have alluded, 



