Gull and Grass
The seagulls have been in flocks behind the ploughs in the midst of Bedfordshire and the neighbouring counties. They are no longer of the sea, marine. The black-headed species both nests inland and spends a good deal of the autumn and winter inland; and other gulls, including the herring, common and lesser black-backed, though they have gull-like nesting-places, have in some measure followed the example of these little inland gulls in seeking food on the tilths and on some of the urban dumps. Perhaps the plough- ing up of grass fields, for the sake of war-time food, has acted as a spur to send them yet further from the sea. There is a deal more good food to be found below the exposed roots of the grasses than in the ordinary tilth. It is, for example, below the grass that chiefly lives and flourishes the delectable bug of the daddy-long-legs. Among such creatures, detestable to man and enjoyed by birds, are included one species for which research students of the I.C.I. are offering money. If anyone can collect a hundred wireworms he can sell them at the research station at Jellott's Hill.
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