LESSER BLACK.-BACKED GULL. 
G9 
Hal)it 3 .-Both in the breeding season and during the autumn 
and winter the present siiecies is gregarious and, even in the 
height of summer, small flocks of the Lesser Black-backed Gul 
maV be observed on the flat and open shores of our south- 
eastern coasts— evidently non-ljreeding birds. It is decidedly 
the Gull most in evidence on our coasts, excepting the black- 
headed Gull, and is easily procured by any gunner who lies up 
for it as it flies inland to the ploughed fields or fallow. Like 
other Gulls, its principal food consist of lish, but it wi 1 often 
be found following the plough, and is frequently to be observed 
among the sliipping on tidal rivers. “ It is a wonderful sigi , 
says Seebohm, “ on appro.aching one of the Larne Islands, to 
see the green mass sprinkled all over with large white-looking 
birds every one standing head to wind, like innumerable 
weathercocks ; and it is still more wonderful, when a shot is 
fired, to see the flutter of white wings as every bird rises in 
hast^ and to hear the angry cries which each bird makes as 
soon as the exertion of getting fairly launched into the air is 
over, and it finds breath enough to scream deliance to the 
invader of its home. In half a minute thousands of birds are 
flying backwards and forwards in every direction, like a living 
snow-storm. I’he various cries of the birds almost exactly 
resemble those of the Herring-Gull. The angry Ajw/S which 
sounds at a distance when the birds are quarrelling, like ak, 
ak, ak), and the good-natured ha, ha, ha, or an, an, an, aie 
constantly heard.” 
Nest.— A slovenly structure of dry grass and dead marine 
plants and sea-w'eed. 
Eggs. Three in number, occasionally four. A curious 
instance of a nest with four eggs is to be seen in the Natural 
History Museum. This nest was placed in the middle of a 
sheep-track, and the sheep, in passing to and fro, had to jump 
over the back of the sitting bird. . , , , . 
Mr Robert Read writes to me:-“ Three is the usual numbei 
of eggs in one set, but I have taken four from a nest In this 
instance they were very heavily marked and evidently laid by 
the same bird The case in the Natural History Museum is 
another instance of four eggs being found in a nest, a'thoi gn, 
to judge from the eggs alone, one could not be certain that 
