THE HERRING-GULL. 
357 
collected about the rocks so early as the 22nd of March, when the 
place was visited by an ornithologist, but very severe weather ensued, 
and they were later in laying than had been previously known. 
I visited the rocks on the 2nd of May, and on sending a man 
down to their chief building-places, in three different parts of the 
cliffs, not an egg was found, but the nests, which are formed of 
grass, &c., were completed for their reception. The rocks were 
said never before to have been without eggs on May-day. Heddles, 
who has gone down the cliffs here in the season, to collect eggs, 
for above thirty years, states — that the usual number is three, 
rarely four ; that there is one brood, and the period of incubation 
is a month. He thinks that they would continue laying in the 
same nest for a month if the eggs were all regularly taken away 
when quite fresh, but that if one be left they will incubate it. He is 
in the habit of taking the eggs for his own use, and that of his 
friends ; — as objects for sale, they are not collected here, unless 
specially ordered, nor is any one accustomed to go down the 
rocks but himself.* These gulls, with the exception of a few, 
leave the rocks every morning, and do not return before evening, 
until the complement of eggs has been laid and incubation com- 
menced. They are said to breed occasionally before being per- 
fectly mature, but the plumage, &c., of such birds described to me 
denotes their being three years old. They leave the rocks so soon 
as the young are able to fly, which is generally early in August. 
During the winter not one is seen here. At all times of spring 
and summer that I have known this locality visited, some of these 
gulls were about the newly ploughed ground ; occasionally in little 
flocks of from six to ten in number, “ following the plough,” 
and in such cases generally exhibiting more caution than the 
black-headed gulls when so engaged, by alighting behind the 
ploughman. From these birds frequenting the newly-sown oat- 
fields, it is imagined that their visits are in search of the grain, in 
proof of which it is urged that “ shellings ” of corn are seen 
* An ornithological friend who partook of the eggs of the herring-gull and razor- 
bill obtained here, considered those of the former, though quite fresh, to have a very 
strong flavour, while those of the latter were good and delicate. 
