Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 4).djvu/470

 hurrying up, till the air is thick with them. Many of these have been here before, but a large proportion are young birds, known by their differing plumage, the grey thickly streaked and mottled with brown, to be exchanged for the pure delicate light grey of adult gullhood when a year old. These seem just as eager as their seniors, as if they had been told what to expect. One would like to hear, in bird talk, a description of these "fish dinners."

The breeding places of the birds are interesting sights about the middle of June. The old birds are then comparatively tame. Some nests contain eggs. Many of the chicks are too young to crawl out of the way, while others are strong enough to skulk, like little puff-balls, under a branch of heather or dried bracken. The inaccessible cliffs of the coast are by no means alone chosen as breeding grounds; often vast colonies occupy the flattest of flat places, like Pilling Moss, not far from Fleetwood, where the little black-headed gull makes his home in countless thousands. The place is an uncultivated shaking fen; and when you stand still, water rises round your feet. The nests extend over many an acre. At first the old birds are rather shy; but let a gun be fired, and the air is at once filled with the indignant parents, who whirl round us, scream at us, and do all they know except attack us. The nest is usually placed in the lee of a bit of weed or heather. The eggs vary in