22 
generally said to have been taken in Heligoland, as I am informed 
by Mr. Bartlett. 
]\Ir. Brown, in his paper on the Greenland Seals* gives much 
interesting information with regard to the habits of this species. 
He says by the whalers they are called the Floe-rat, and ai’e found 
generally on the floes, or in the smooth floe-waters ; they seldom 
frequent the open sea, but remain in the neighbourhood of the 
coa.st-ice, in retired situations ; their food consists mainly of various 
species of Crustacea and sometimes small fish. This species is the 
smallest of the Northern Seals, and of very little commercial value, 
its flesh, however, is eaten, and its skin forms the chief material 
of clothing in Greenland. A small seal is found in the now 
inland fresh waters of Lake Baikal, which in the opinion of some 
naturalists is identical with this species. 
II. 
S C 0 U L T 0 N G U L L E K Y. 
By H. Stevenson, F.L.S. 
Read 29th Sex>temher, 1871. 
ScouLTON Mere, at the present time, as in years gone by, the chief 
nesting place of the black-headed gull, fLarus TidibundusJ in 
Norfolk, is situated in the centre of the county, two miles from 
the town of Hingham, and about eight-and-twenty from the nearest 
point of the coast. The choice of such a locality indicates at once a 
marked peculiarity of this species, that of becoming, during the 
breeding season, essentially a land gull, consorting only in autumn 
and winter with the true sea gulls of our shores and estuaries. 
Our local historians, unfortunately, afford us no information 
respecting this interesting spot. Blomfield, as usual, is too en- 
grossed with the church, its rectors and its monumental brasses, 
to notice any particular features of the surrounding country ; 
indeed, so far as his record ot the parish extends, we iniglit doubt 
* Proceedings of the Zoological Society, June, 1SG8. 
