S INCE the small black-headed gulls have become winter pets of
the London public (who as a rule do not see 'their black cape until they are just about to leave town for 'their spring season on their nesting marshes or lakes) some curiosity is roused every year as to what becomes of them in 'summer. In the spring the heads of the mature birds become almost as dark as if they had been dipped in ink or in coffee extract, and shortly afterwards they all disappear until the following autumn.
The change is generally only from one inland region to another. These little gulls are more like rooks in their breeding habits than sea-fowl. Few or none ever neat by the sea, except on fresh-water marshes adjacent to it. They assemble in colonies, often as close to cultivated land, or even to houses, as are the homes of their black rivals the rooks, and there, after the fashion of land birds, they follow the plough to find food, and bring up their broods in any place which takes their fancy. They migrate to other pools or marshes when disturbed, just as rooks leave rookeries or return to them; but, unlike the rooks, they lay eggs which are good to eat and have a commercial value, while of old even the young gulls were eaten, just as young rooks are now.
Among the prettiest English gulleries is one upon a marsh in Holy Island. This, the largest of all the sea-girt territories, including the Fame Islands, which gave to the district to which Norham on the border was joined the title of "Norham and Islandshire," shares in a great measure the privilege of being a bird sanctuary, which the Fames are in every sense. At the southern end of the island, some three-quarters of a mile east of the old fortress which crowns the peak of basalt rock like a smaller St. Michael's Mount, and looks over the waste of sea and sands to the mighty pile of Bamborough, is what may once have been a lake, but is now a marsh of a peculiarly beautiful kind. It may be some forty acres in extent, and is within bearing distance of the roar of the breakers on the shingle which here fringes the shore. At one end stands a small clump of wind-swept sycamores, so low that a child could climb into them; but these trees are full of rooks' nests. The marsh in May presents the most vivid green appearance imaginable, a brilliance and pureness of colour due to the fact that the whole area is covered with a single plant, the curious upright rods of the mare's-tail, or Equisetum. In the early days of May this grows like green-jointed pencils, with blunt points, so thickly as to leave only an Inch or so of space between the stems. These in turn rise from a green sponge of saturated moss. The lights and shadows on and between the millions of green rods give to the whole level the appear- ance of being covered with velvet or plush. But the extreme beauty of the place is further set off, not only by the hundreds of white-winged birds, but by the further adornment of a most beautiful flower. Near the edges of the marsh, where the mare's-tail grows less thickly, and in other parts where there are wider spaces between the green rods, are spikes of flowers, such as might be thought to have been transplanted from the shelter of some forcing-house of costly exotics. When in bud the spikes are rose-coloured; when open they are of the most delicate white, tinted with pale mauve. In addition, each flower is fringed with what looks like lace or filigree. The flower is the bog-bean, which, with the Eguisetura and the bed of moss below, form practically the sole vegetation. The gulls make their nests in patches of broken-down mare's-tail rods, and when visiting their young hover and flutter over the green expanse, into which at last they plunge, like big white butterflies. The chattering and calling of the gulls mingle with the song of hundreds of larks and pipits that nest in the meadows round. Corn sowing and harrowing are going on a few fields off on one side, while on the other the island fishermen are putting off to catch crabs and lobsters in their big boats, and at the distance of only a mile or so seals may be chasing salmon at the back of the island, where the stake nets are set.
It is worth noting that black-headed gulls have chosen this nesting-place among the fields and meadows in pre- ference to what might be imagined to be a far more attractive home on the Fame Islands only a few miles away, where they have complete protection. There not
only the predatory and mischievous lesser black-backed gulls and herring gulls nest, but also the beautiful common terns and Sandwich terns, which somewhat resemble the black-headed gulls in their tameness and harmlessness. But these isolated rocks do not suit the latter. Like the rooks, they prefer human society.
Nothing could be in greater contrast to the Holy Island marsh than the se&ne on Hoveton Broad, perhaps a little earlier in the year, where another colony of these gulls has existed for very many years at a short dis- tance from Norwich. This broad, which is private property, has some rather peculiar features. Though connected on one side with the system of broads lying along the course of the river Bare, of which they are overflows, as a rule just separated by a line of sedges or half-drowned alders, Hove- ton Broad (the larger of the two so named) washes at its upper end fields of quite sound corn-land, which are ploughed to within a few yards of the lake in some places. Yet it is as characteristic of the peculiar and delightful district to which it belongs as any of the broads surrounded by marsh-land on all sides. There are islands of deep reeds and sallow bushes mixed, beds of sedges and giant rush, and on parts of the margin little bolts of sedges, tussocks, water-willows, and alder, amongst which various kinds of wild duck, shoveller ducks, and snipe breed, and where a semi-aquatic race of pheasants loves to harbour. The fences by the keeper's cottage are of reed, and it is a somewhat amusing evidence of the quantity of bird-life on and around the broad that the keeper's cat is tethered by a string in a little kennel in the garden. But instead of being busy with pheasants' eggs at this time, the broad-keeper's energies are occupied in another and rather different way, though they are also concerned with eggs. He has constantly to visit the gallery which lies on the far side of the broad, and gather the eggs for the Norwich market. Every week he picks up hundreds, which find a very ready sale, and are considered nearly as good as plovers' eggs. The nests are all made in a shallow part of the lake, where ordinary fiat-leaved sedges grow. These die down in winter, but not entirely, as do the giant rushes. On these broad leaves, broken and flattened down, with the addition of a few more, and possibly of some reed-stems also, the gulls make their small nests and lay their successive clutches of eggs. They search all the adjacent fields for food like flocks of white rooks, and are never shot at or disturbed by any one. It is very possible that a large number of the London black- headed gulls belong to this colony, or to the much larger one at Scoulton Mere, in the same county.
It would be an interesting experiment if it could be arranged with those in control of St. James's Park for two or three dozen of the tamest park gulls to be netted and labelled, as the Russian naturalist in Taurida labelled the crane which was brought to the Mandi at Khartoum, so that the nesting-home of these birds might be identified. Formerly there were large galleries in the Essex marshes, from which not only numbers of eggs were sent to London, but also young gulls for eating purposes. Fuller says that on a place opposite Harwich called "Pewit Island" (" pewit" being the name commonly given to these gulls), the young birds were fed for the market on curds and gravel, the former fattening them, while the latter improved their digestion. Otherwise, they had " a raw gust of the sea."
The way in which these birds have adapted themselves to winter life on the London river is as curious as the results are pretty. The surface of the London Thames at this time yields very little food. A certain amount of bread and rubbish is doubtless thrown overboard from barges and tugs, but this can only go a short way towards feeding them. They also beg from passers-by with the greatest energy and success ; but even so, the supply given them by charity is small com- pared with their daily needs. Yet they are by no means starved, and always devote a considerable part of the day- time, as well as all the night, to resting and sleeping, which they would not do were they very hungry. But the main source of their regular food-supply is still doubtful. The up- river gulls, and possibly many of those which spend most of their time between Battersea and London Bridges, feed very largely on the market gardens of Chiswick. When a nice big heap of most unpleasant " fertilisers," including stable manure, dead fish, rotten oranges, and other delicacies, is collected before being ploughed into these well-cultivated vegetable farms, the gulls may be seen in hundreds round the heaps. They also have a most disgUsting habit of frequenting the tanks where raw sewage is converted into "sewage effluent," where their habits are simply those of vultures. Among the polite accomplishments learnt by these little gulls in town is that of being inimitable " fielders." The precision with which they catch crumbs of bread thrown at any speed past or to them as they hover in mid-air is surprising. They also rob the various kinds of wild-fowl below them so unmercifully that the latter, " by sad experience taught," dive as soon as they get a morsel, and swallow it under water to avoid these little harpies of the park.
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