THE LESSER BLACK-BACKET) GULL. 
337 
occasion seen a straggler as late as May. At any distance it 
may be readily recognised by its acutely pointed and some- 
what long white wings, and by a peculiar roundness of body. 
The note also has a character of its own, somewhat resembling 
that of the common Goose. The bird seems to be partial to 
vegetable food, often resorting to the fields, where it may not 
seldom be seen near the pigs, which in Shetland are tethered 
by long ropes fastened to a stone or to a stake in the ground. 
Possibly the earth-worms rooted up may be an attraction. In 
the stomach I have found a considerable quantity of oats and 
vegetable fibre, with numerous small pieces of quartz. 
The Iceland Gull has never been known to breed in the Shet- 
land Islands. 
THE LESSEE BLACK-BACKED GULL. 
Larus fuscus, 
SAID FOOL. 
In Unst this Gull breeds in countless numbers during the 
early summer, but entirely deserts us in autumn, and is not 
seen until the following spring, the first days of April com- 
monly bringing it back again. The occurrence of so much as 
a single specimen in the winter time is exceedingly rare. 
Indeed, I have in my journals but one solitary note of its having 
been met with at that season by an observer on whose accuracy 
implicit reliance could be placed. The bird in question was 
shot by my brother-in-law on the 29th of December 1864, at 
Swina Hess. It unfortunately fell into the water, but he had 
an opportunity of comparing it with a Greater Black-backed 
which came and hovered above it, and also at the moment of 
firing was quite sure what the bird was. I cannot say whether 
it thus completely forsakes every part of Shetland, but so total 
a disappearance from the Korth Isles is remarkable, seeing that 
it remains aU the year round in Orkney, wliere, indeed, it is 
even more plentiful in winter than in summer. 
The breeding grounds are chosen, for preference, among steep 
