502 
LARIDiE. 
the guano of these birds. When we were there, this box 
had not yet been put in readiness for that year's use; we 
had not, therefore, the opportunity of enjoying a bird- 
nesting excursion so novel. 
© 
The Great Black-backed Gull makes a nest of a quan¬ 
tity of dried grass, carelessly heaped together. The eggs 
are three in number; and never, I believe, four, as stated 
by Mr. Selby: they are often very much like eggs of the 
lesser black-backed and herring gulls, but are generally 
marked with much larger blotches of colour; they are, 
also, for the most part, considerably larger; I have, how¬ 
ever, seen several specimens that were very little, if any, 
bigger than large eggs of the herring gull. Many eggs 
of this and other species have been passed off by Mr. Dunn 
as those of the skua gull, to which they bear but slight 
resemblance: and I have little doubt that Mr. Gould had 
one of these before him, when he said that the egg of 
the skua resembles that of the herring gull, in shape and 
colour. The eows of this bird are rich and excellent to 
OO 
eat: when boiled, the yolk is much deeper in colour than 
those of the common fowl, and the white transparent: 
they are, in consequence, a most valuable acquisition to 
the owners of the islands upon which they are deposited. 
The custom is to take the whole of the eggs as soon 
as laid; and the second set, in like manner, allow¬ 
ing the birds to sit the third time. One gentleman, 
Mr. Scott, upon whose property they breed, and by whom 
we were most hospitably received, told us that he had 
thus secured sixty dozen of their eggs for winter’s use, 
although the island which they frequented, was scarcely 
half an acre in extent. In Norway, where the numerous 
small islands afford them such choice of breeding-places, 
they are much less sociable and widely dispersed: we 
met with one or two pairs only, on most of the uninha- 
