334 
LAKID^., 
clutcliing at the blades of grass, and eagerly plucking every tiny 
dower, so delighted to be ashore again after a couple of years 
among the icebergs. And then on the way back there were 
the little square blocks of turf, stowed away so carefully at the 
end of the thwarts, that the men left on board might see and 
touch the real green grass once more. In those days the only 
tenants of Balta were the birds and beasts, — fishes, too, by the 
way, albeit headless and split and briny, on the curing beach ; 
and then there was that particular rabbit the good captain had 
set his heart upon, which would bolt into its burrow before he 
could pull the trigger ; and the production of a new pound tin 
of Curtis and Harvey, which was to be laid in the mouth of 
the burrow, and fired with a short train, that the rabbit might 
be compelled to bolt out out again at the other door, — which it 
doubtless would have done effectually enough. However, this 
is not ornithology. — Ed.] 
THE COMMON GULL. 
Larus canus, 
SMALL MAA — BLUE MAA. 
The habits of so familiar a bird are too well known to all sea- 
side observers to render needful any lengthened notice of it 
here. It is of course plentiful in Shetland, where the young 
broods usually begin to appear in the early part of July, but 
are often to be seen well hedged by the middle of the month. 
I have studied the nesting habits of the bird rather carefully, 
to detect points of difference from the Lesser Black-backed 
Gull. With regm’d to the nests themselves, they are on the 
whole somewhat neater than those of the last-named bird, the 
materials being the same, namely, dry grass, seaweed, heather, 
moss, carex, sea-pink, &c., though finer, and built together a 
little more substantially at the edges : the hollow is about six 
inches across. The quantity of material used in the construc- 
tion of tlie nests is smaller wliere tliere is much grass or heatlier 
