THE SHORT-BILLED GULL. 
313 
resembling a rookery, seven or eight on a tree, — the nests 
being framed of sticks laid flatly. Its voice and mode of 
flying are like those of a tern ; and, like that bird, it rushes 
fiercely at the head of any one who intrudes on its haunts, 
screaming loudly. It has moreover the strange practice, 
considering the form of its feet, of perching on posts and 
trees ; and it may be often seen standing gracefully on a 
summit of a small spruce fir"^.^^ 
Young gulls are generally mottled with greyish-brown, 
and in Shetland are called Scories: this plumage they retain 
for a year. The larger species, such as the Great Black- 
backed Gull, will not allow the smaller kinds to tenant 
the same rocks or to fish near them, as we have seen in the 
Shetland Islands. On and over the large mass of rock which 
seems to have fallen away from Noss Island, this large fine 
bird may be seen resting or flying, "monarch of all he 
surveys."'^ 
Sir John Eichardson speaks of the predaceous habits and 
voracity of the Short-billed Gull [Lams hmchyrhyncJius) , 
as he observed them during his late search for Sir John 
Franklin. "If a goose was wounded by our sportsmen, 
* Arctic Searching Expedition, etc., by Sir John Richardson, C.B., E.R.S., 
etc., voL i. pp. 200, 201. 
