SILVER GULL 
6S 
know now that it was an Oyster-catcher's, but the 
donor's assurance that it was a Seagull's egg and 
found on the sea-sand was the stimulus to many a 
weary and fruitless hunt up and down the beach by 
Brighton Pier. Alas ! that had gone with the rest 
of childhood's illusions many years before I saw a 
real Seagull's nest. 
That was in the great breeding-ground of all our 
Sea-fowl, the islands of Bass Straits. It was on one of 
that curious group of islets, known to the natives 
as the Cabasheens, east of Flinders Island. We had 
gone there to photograph the famous Gannet rookery, 
and were returning to our boat when we stumbled 
upon a small lot of Gulls' nests. There was but 
one egg in each nest, for the crew of a schooner 
had been there the day before in quest of a change 
of diet. There were altogether about thirty nests, 
built in and upon grass-tussocks. 
It is rather curious that there should be no known 
breeding-place of this species inside Port Phillip, nor 
(on the coast) nearer to us than Phillip Island on the 
east and Yambuk on the west ; another is on the 
Laurence Rocks oS Portland. But I am told, though 
I have not seen it, that there is an immense colony 
on Leslie Manor Station, Cressy; and no doubt the 
birds build on other protected western waters, which 
fact would suffice to account for the numbers of Gulls 
that we see at all times of the year on Corio Bay. 
On the south coast it is not by any means so common 
a bird. There is no other species of Gull in Victoria 
5 
