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LINCOLNSHIRE GULLERIES (LARUS RID1BUNDUS). 

 By the Rev. F. L. Blathwayt, M.A., M.B.O.U. 



In the days before the draining of the swamps and fens, 

 Lincolnshire must have been a veritable paradise for wildfowl, 

 and the Gulls which nested in those days had as companions 

 many species of birds which no longer breed in the county. 

 Among the records of vanished nesting species we find those of 

 the former abundance of Black Terns, Ruffs, Bitterns, and 

 Avocets. Pennant, writing about 1771, states that Black Terns, 

 making an incessant noise, are found during spring and summer 

 in vast numbers in the fens of Lincolnshire. Colonel Montagu, 

 in his ' Dictionary' (1802-1813), records that he " observed great 

 numbers of Black Terns in the fens of Lincolnshire during the 

 breeding season"; while Lubbock, in his 'Fauna of Norfolk,' 

 1845, declares he had received news of Black Terns' eggs recently 

 obtained at Crowland Wash, South Lincolnshire. 



Montagu found the Ruff resting in fair numbers in the fens 

 about Spalding and Boston in the early years of last century, 

 and John Cordeaux thinks they still nested in the North Lincoln- 

 shire marshes about the same period. On the boggy heaths 

 and swamps in the north-west of the county they continued to 

 nest sparingly about 1860, the last eggs being taken so lately 

 as 1882. 



From a letter to ' The Zoologist,' 1865, we learn that Bitterns 

 were very abundant in the Isle of Axholme about 1834 ; we find 

 also records of their breeding there, and from the fourth edition 

 of Yarrell's ' British Birds ' we learn that at the beginning of the 

 nineteenth century these birds could be heard " booming in the 

 warrens and swamps of Manton and Twigmoor." 



The Avocet also formerly nested in Lincolnshire. In Cam- 

 den's 'Britannia,' Gough's edition, 1806, we read: — "Opposite 

 Fosdyke Wash during summer are vast numbers of Avosettas, 

 called there ' yelpers,' from their cry as they hover over the 



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