392
BLACK-HEADED GULLS IN ESSEX.
And, fifthly, upon the continued welfare and prosperity of these
local colonies in a great measure depends the delight and pleasure
the birds afford to city folk, when in wintry weather they wend
their flight up the busy highway of the Thames, to pick up
crumbs of comfort from the London cockney.
I only wish the office of looking after and protecting these
beautiful and interesting birds could be made a county or a
national duty.
Next year I shall hope to send you a more flourishing
account.
[At the reading of the paper some conversation took place
as to the particular kinds of gulls frequenting the London
waters. We have to thank Mr. Howard Saunders, F.L.S.,
F.Z.S., the acknowledged authority on the Laridae, for
some remarks on this point, which fully confirm Mr. Clark's
observations. Mr. Saunders writes:—"Undoubtedly the gulls
which resort to our London Park waters and also to the Thames,
are mainly Larus ridibundus; there are, however, some L. canus
(Common Gull); and all the large gulls, L, argentatus (Herring
Gull), L. fuscus (Lesser black-backed Gull), and L. marinus
(Great Black-backed Gull) may be seen, the latter rarely. I
do not remember the Kittiwake (Rissa tridactyla) in the Parks."
This last remark of Mr. Saunders has reference to a communi-
cation to the Times, alluding to Kittiwakes supposed to have
been seen in St. James' Park. In an interesting article in the
Standard on November 21st, 1896, the following remarks
occur :—
"The gulls which are now to be observed on the Thames are not present
in such hosts as in the winter of 1894-5, and certainly not for the same
reason. It was owing to the severe and tempestuous weather that vast
numbers of sea birds of many kinds were driven on that occasion far inland
by the impossibility of picking up a living at sea or round the coast. Their
migration was not confined to the Thames, but extended over nearly the
whole of the northern and eastern coasts; and in the parlour of many a
country inn in those parts may be seen little auks, guillemots, and rare gulls,
which fell to the gun, or were picked up dead from exhaustion, and are now
set up, in more or less life-like attitudes, mute witnesses to the skill of the
local bird-stuffer. The bulk of our visitors two yeare ago were blackheaded
gulls, and most of the birds now- visible belong to the same species. The
young ones, who are more numerous may be distinguished by the black-tipped
tail and the yellowish-brown feet, legs, and bill, while in the older ones the
black bar at the tail-tip is wanting, and the feet, legs, and bill are red. The,
dark hood, from which these birds derive their popular name, is assumed
during the breeding season, and is due to a change of colour, not to a moult.
It is scarcely necessary to say that none of them show the hood now, though