436 BIRDS OF DUMFRIESSHIRE 
often cut short its career. The individuals met with inland 
are usually immature. I shot a Herring-Gull at Grennan 
(Penpont) in December, 1905, whose mandibles had become 
tied together in some inexpHcable way by the intestines 
of a rabbit on which it had been feeding. Mr. J. Harkness 
writes me that immature Herring-Gulls cross inland in 
autumn, and Mr. Bruce Campbell, in a Hst of birds seen at 
Moffat from October, 1896, to February, 1897, describes the 
species as plentiful.* 
Howard Saunders says : " This species is the most widely 
distributed member of its family on the coasts of the British 
Isles, breeding wherever precipitous rocks or isolated ' stacks ' 
afford a suitable refuge. . . . Occasionally it resorts to low 
marshy ground, and colonies may be found on islets in lochs 
in some parts of Scotland."! 
Although nesting on the chffs in the neighbouring county 
of Kirkcudbright, this species is not definitely known to nest 
in Dumfriesshire. Mr. W. F. Graham assures me that among 
the Lesser Black-backed Gulls breeding at Raeburn Moss 
(Kirkpatrick-Fleming) there are always some Herring-Gulls, 
and that in 1908 there were four nests of this species ; but I 
cannot personally corroborate this statement. 
An albino Herring-Gull shot in the autumn of 1898 may 
have given rise to the reported presence of the Ivory Gull 
(see p. 442) in the Solway. 
THE LESSER BLACK-BACKED GULL. 
Larus fuscus, Linnaeus. 
A common resident from February to November, breeding in some littoral 
parishes, rai'ely seen in December and January. 
Sir WiUiam Jardine, writing in 1843 of the Lesser Black- 
backed Gull, says : " During winter, spring, and autumn 
* Zoologist, 1898, p. 508. 
t Man. Brit. Birds, 1899, p. 673. 
