140 LAUGHING GULL. 



cavity, from four and a half to five inches in diameter, and an inch and a 

 half in depth. This cavity is formed of finer grasses, placed in a pretty 

 regular circular form. I once found a nest formed as it were of two; that is 

 to say, two pairs had formed a nest of nearly double the ordinary size, and 

 the two birds sat close to each other during rainy weather, but separately, 

 each on its own three eggs. I observed that the males, as well as the 

 females, thus concerned in this new sort of partnership, evinced as much 

 mutual fondness as if they were brothers. On the Tortugas, where these 

 Gulls also breed in abundance, I found their eggs deposited in slight hollows 

 scooped in the sand. Whilst at Galveston, in Texas, I found their nests 

 somewhat less bulky than in the Jerseys, which proved to me how much 

 birds are guided in these matters by differences in atmospheric temperature 

 and locality. 



I never found more than three eggs in a nest. Their average length is 

 two inches and half an eighth, their greatest breadth a trifle more than an 

 inch and a half. They vary somewhat in their general tint, but are usually 

 of a light earthy olive, blotched and spotted with dull reddish-brown and 

 some black, the markings rather more abundant towards the larger end. As 

 an article of food, they are excellent. These Gulls are extremely anxious 

 about their eggs, as well as their young, which are apt to wander away from 

 the nest while yet quite small. They are able to fly at the end of six weeks, 

 and soon after this are abandoned by their parents, when the old and young 

 birds keep apart in flocks until the following spring, when, I think, the latter 

 nearly attain the plumage of their parents, though they are still smaller, and 

 have the terminal band on the tail. 



The Black-headed Gull frequently associates with the Razor-billed Shear- 

 water, Rhynchops nigra, in winter; and I can safely say that I have seen 

 more than a thousand of each kind alight on the same points of estuaries and 

 mouths of rivers; the Gulls standing or sitting by themselves, at no great 

 distance from the Razor-bills. Now and then they would all suddenly rise 

 on wing as if frightened, perform a few evolutions in the air, and again settle 

 on the very same spot, still, however, keeping separate. While thus in the 

 company of the Razor-bills, the Gulls are with great difficulty approached, 

 the former being exceedingly wary, and almost always rising when a person 

 draws near, the Gulls immediately following them, and the two great flocks 

 making off to some distant point, generally not very accessible. If taken up 

 on being wounded, these Gulls are apt to bite severely. If, on being shot at, 

 they fall on the water, they swim fast and lightly, their companions all the 

 while soaring above, and plunging towards them, as if intent on rescuing 

 them. This great sympathy often proves fatal to them, for, if the gunner is 



