THE HERRING-GULL. 
361 
But nearly all the birds we then see are immature. A few hours 
after visiting the Gobbins, on the first occasion named, a small 
flock of these came under my notice far up Belfast Bay. "When 
at Strangford Lough, on the 21st of June, a rather large flock 
of immature gulls of this species was seen on one of the islands : 
— a bird which was shot proved to be one of the preceding year. 
On the sands near the Middle Island of Arran, off Galway Bay, 
a large flock exclusively of immature birds was observed on the 
9th of July, 1831. But on the same day of the month of the 
preceding year I saw, by the aid of a telescope, at the mouth of 
the river Bann, a very large flock, which appeared to be in one, 
two, three, and four years old plumage. 
With respect to young birds, it struck me as singular that so 
latefin the season as September 23rd (1849), when Mr. B. Ball 
and I were walking on the road skirting the sea for two miles 
southward of Newcastle (county Down), a large number of these 
birds, all in the same stage of immaturity, and in flocks of from 
five to fifteen, kept flying in succession in the same track above 
the rocks in a northerly direction ; — they flew in perfect silence. 
So early in the season as the 30th of July, 1845, during a walk 
of two miles from Belfast on the western side of the bay, I 
remarked that gulls were numerous as in winter : I reckoned 
130 together, and there were several smaller flocks — in the largest 
body were numbers of birds not less than herring-gulls, and 
which seemed even larger; there were certainly three species. 
On the 19th of September this year immense flocks, consisting, 
it was believed, of thousands; of these birds (described as 
not less than herring-gulls, and apparently larger), were seen by 
the three chief wild-fowl shooters in Belfast Bay : anything like 
such numbers had never been observed here before. “ They flew 
southward like wild geese the same day.” Lor a w^eek afterwards, 
numbers of flocks, consisting of hundreds, remained, but became 
gradually scarcer until all were gone southward. This is the 
only instance known to me of gulls appearing here in flocks on 
migration; and it is an interesting fact that not a single bird 
in these flocks of hundreds and thousands w r as adult;— they ap- 
