Page:Natural History, Birds.djvu/330

Rh they feed them with the entrails of beasts, and when they are fat sell them for fourpence or five-pence a-piece. They yearly take about a thousand two hundred young ones, whence may be computed what profit the lord makes of them. About the end of July they all fly away and leave the island."

Another breeding station, which seems to have been occupied by these birds for more than three hundred years, is described in the "Catalogue of Norfolk and Suffolk birds." "Near the centre of the county of Norfolk, at the distance of about twenty-five miles from the sea, is a large piece of water called Scoulton Mere. In the middle of this mere there is a boggy island of seventy acres extent, covered with reeds, and on which there are some birch and willow trees. There is no river communicating between the mere and the sea. This mere has from time immemorial been a favourite breeding spot of the Brown-headed Gull. These birds begin to make their appearance at Scoulton about the middle of February; and by the end of the first week in March the great body of them have always arrived. They spread themselves over the neighbouring country to the distance of several miles in search of food, following the plough like Rooks. If the spring is mild the Gulls begin to lay about the middle of April; but the month of May is the time at which the eggs are found in the greatest abundance. At this season a man and three boys find constant employment in collecting them, and they have sometimes gathered upwards of a thousand in a day. These eggs are sold on the spot at the rate of fourpence a score, and are