BIRDS 421 



BLACK-HEADED GULL. 



Larus ridibundus, L. 



In no part of Britain is the Black-headed Gull more numerous 

 or more firmly established than upon the coasts and inland waters 

 of the Lake District. Its breeding-places, it is true, are generally 

 a good many miles apart, but in the autumn and winter months 

 the species becomes very generally distributed. If you ramble 

 along the banks of the Eden on a winter morning shortly before 

 dawn, you will be sure to see some of these birds working up 

 the swollen river, looking like spectral fowl in the grey light of 

 breaking day ; you hear no cry, for they flit silently past, each 

 one following rapidly in the wake of its immediate predecessor, 

 all bent upon reaching their feeding-grounds higher up the 

 river. All the winter through, many of these Gulls may be 

 seen upon our estuaries from Morecambe Bay northwards ; nor 

 are such localities entirely forsaken at any time. Not only do 

 the breeding-birds visit the coast at frequent intervals, but the 

 surplus population, consisting of immature individuals prin- 

 cipally, spends all the summer on the sands. Consequently, if 

 you visit the beach between Silloth and Maryport at the end of 

 May, you may miss the big troops of these Gulls that one 

 is accustomed to see in winter; but the species will nevertheless 

 be represented by little parties of unpaired birds. Gracefully 

 do they pose in the shallows of the fast-ebbing tide, a single leg 

 generally drawn up close to the white feathers of the breast, 

 apparently absorbed in contemplating the mist-wrapped outline 

 of the hills across the Solway Firth. 



This remark applies with equal accuracy to the Lancashire 

 sands, upon which this Gull is known as the ' Cockle Maw/ A 

 few stragglers may at all times be observed upon the larger 

 sheets of water in the interior of Lakeland. The gregarious 

 character of this Gull would facilitate the enumeration of its 

 breeding-stations, were it not that the birds resent human 

 interference, and, consequently, change their breeding-grounds 

 occasionally, shifting to quieter spots than those in which they 

 have been systematically robbed. The most southern of our 



