HERRING GULL 249 
when the water beat along the whole two-mile sea-front of 
Douglas in masses of seething foam, and the roadways flowed 
like rivers, the Gulls, in the very face of the raging wind, 
hovered calmly above the scene of enormous commotion. 
The Herring Gull appears to be a nest robber in Man as 
in other localities, for I have repeatedly found about its 
colonies the broken egg-shells of Shags, Razorbills, and 
Puffins. According to the testimony of farmers, it also 
readily robs the nests of domestic fowls where accessible to 
it, carrying away the eggs on its beak, and Miss Teare, of 
Ballabeg, saw one fly off with a chicken in full view of the 
enraged owner. Mr. W..R. Teare has been assured that it 
commonly kills and eats rats, and residents in his parish 
(Arbory) told him that in the time of the great snow 
(February 1895), the Herring Gulls, ‘like hawks, hunted 
down and devoured the starving small birds. 
I cannot help remarking on the singular fact (specially 
striking in connection with so large and conspicuous a 
species, the whole of whose remains can scarcely be 
speedily done away with), that amid the multitudes of 
living Herring Gulls by which we are constantly sur- 
rounded, the sight of a single dead specimen which appears 
to have died naturally is most rare and exceptional. 
The Herring Gull nests, usually on the coast, where 
suitable localities occur in Britain. It is the most 
abundant marine breeding Gull in Ireland; it nests: at 
Lambay and on the Antrim coast. In Galloway it breeds 
at various stations, but on the opposite coast of England 
_ only at St. Bees; it nests also on Bardsey and the Lleyn 
coast, and abundantly on the cliffs of Anglesea. In Ireland 
it is) said to have no inland colonies, but there is at least 
one such in Wigtownshire; and one until lately existed at 
Foulshaw Moss, near Morecambe Bay. It is very common. 
in:the Scottish isles. 
