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316 shore. Their periodical migrations from the coast to their breeding localities and back, are so regular that they may be calculated on almost to a day.

The food of this species consists of insects, worms, spawn, fry, and small fishes; it has been seen dashing round some lofty elms catching cock-chafers. In spring it follows the plough as regularly as the Rook, and from the great number of worms and grubs which it devours renders no un-important benefit to the farmer. Nor is this the only way in which these birds are useful; for both their eggs and young are valued for the table. Of the former Mr. Selby speaks as being well-flavoured, free from a fishy taste, and when boiled hard, as not easily distinguishable from those of the Lapwing, for which they are sometimes substituted in the market. He adds, that the young are still eaten, though not in such demand as they formerly were, when great numbers were annually taken and fattened for the table, and when a Gullery produced a revenue of from 50l. to 80l. to the proprietor. Willoughby describes one of these colonies, which in his time annually built and bred at Norbury in Staffordshire, in an island in the middle of a great pool. " About the beginning of March hither they come; about the end of April they build. They lay three, four, or five eggs, of a dirty green colour, spotted with dark brown, two inches long, of an ounce and a half weight; blunter at one end . . . When the young are almost come to their full growth those entrusted by the lord of the soil drive them from off the island through the pool into nets set on the banks to take them. When they have taken them