322 
LARIDiE. 
THE BLACK-HEADED GULL. 
Bed-legged Gull.* 
Lams ridibundus, Linn. 
Is common and resident. 
This is the common gull of Belfast Bay, and of the oozy or 
sandy estuaries and marine loughs of at least the northern half 
of Ireland. Great numbers may be seen frequenting such 
localities daily throughout the year, excepting at the period of 
the breeding season. 
Erom the circumstance of this species breeding inland, and 
its eggs and young being in request for the table in the good 
old times, we have had more ample information respecting its 
economy at an early period than of any other of its tribe. In 
Plot's ‘Natural History of Staffordshire' (1686), there is a very 
full account of this bird given, which has been often copied,t or 
the substance of it published in a condensed form'’ (by Bewick, 
&c.). Sheppard and Whitear particularly notice a breeding- 
haunt in Norfolk, in their memoir on the birds of that county, 
published in the Linnean Transactions (vol. xv. p. 52)4 The 
Bishop of Norwich, in his ‘Eamiliar History of Birds' (vol. ii. 
p. 246), introduces an ample description of a great breeding-place 
at the present time in the same county. 
Breeding -haunts . — 'This gull breeds throughout Ireland in 
similar localities to those described in the works referred to. On 
the 27th of June, 1832, when at Portlough, near Dunfanaghy, 
in the north-west of Donegal, covering perhaps a hundred acres, 
I went in a corragh to a little islet about fifty or sixty yards from 
the shore, on which black -headed gulls were breeding, and found 
their nests and eggs : the nests were formed negligently of reeds 
* Pine and Pine-maw are sometimes applied to it on the Antrim coast. 
f See Stanley’s ‘Familiar History of Birds Garner’s ‘Nat. Hist, of Statford- 
shire ’ (1844), &c. 
X This is copied verbatim by Yarrell. 
