The Worst Bird It is a curious coincidence that within
the space of a wezk dwellers in Skye, in Jura and in North Devon have told me tales of the lamentable increase of the greater black-backed gull, which is much the most savage of all wild birds. No eagle or hawk is in the same category. - It will kill any bird that it may meet. It will even rob a seal of its prey by con- tinuous mobbing. I myself recently saw one strike a heron on the wing. These greater blackbacks are now a very common bird along the North Devon coast and the Pem- brokeshire coast, and they are common in the islands off the West Coast of Scotland. Along with other gulls they deliberately quarter the ground for nests. So far as my experience goes, thly do attack other gulls rarely. I have seen them taking the eggs of guillemots, but certainly the nurseries of the herring gulls on the mainland and of Kitti- wake on Lundy Island seem not to suffer at all from the neighbourhood of the blackbacks: It would perhaps be a good thing if the oologists would discover some special merit in the eggs of this species. It is a general experience that excess of numbers leads to worse habits in marauding birds.
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