246 HERRING GULL 
abundantly on the south side of Spanish Head overlooking 
the Sound, on the screes under the ‘Chasms, and on 
towards Perwick, from which there is a break over the low 
southern coast until Santon is reached, where between 
Santon Head and Port Soderick there is a picturesque 
colony, centering on the ‘shelves’ near Pistol. North of 
Port Soderick a few breed, or bred, on the seaward side of 
the Marine Drive at Rhebogue and Wallberry. No gulls 
are known to breed on Banks’s Howe or Clay Head, but 
between Laxey and Dhoon a small settlement exists about 
Martland ; a few nests are annually placed on the sea-face 
of the waste and lonely Barony Hill. There are small 
stations on comparatively low rocks at Gob ny Ow, near 
Traie ny Uainaigue, and elsewhere on the Maughold coast, 
south of the head of that name, where a larger colony exists, 
occupying ground on both sides of the extreme point, 
and giving to a strand underneath the name of Traie ny 
Foillan. (Creg yn ’oillan, Lag ny Foillan, Gob ny Voillan, 
and Ellan ny Foillan* in other localities also owe their 
names to the resort of Gulls). 
During the whole year the mewing and wailing clamour 
of the Herring Gull is one of the most familiar of our 
natural sounds, more common even than the caw of the 
Rook, and in spring every shore rings with the clear 
laughing note, as true a signal of the return of brighter 
days as the sight of the first Wheatear or Swallow. Long 
before building operations commence, the breeding resorts, 
which indeed are never entirely forsaken, are crowded, and 
mated pairs are seen perched side by side in silent content, a 
beautiful spectacle in their pure and elegant nuptial plumage. 
Nests vary greatly in appearance, sometimes a wisp of 
grass in a rudely scratched hollow, sometimes a substantial 
and almost neat structure. On the south of the Calf of 
1 Ellan ny Foillan is a field inland on Loughan-y-Eiy (Lezayre). See Moore, 
Manx Names, p. 128. 
