LARIDAE—GULLS. 265
Black-headed Gull: Larus ridibundus. Locally, " Cob,"
Brad " Peewit Gull."
A resident, though local, uncommon and partially migratory. It
still breeds on the coast at several spots, though in much smaller
numbers than it
used at one time.
It is now the only
Gull breeding
with us. Dale
speaks of it (2.
402) as the " Pe-
wit or Blackcap,";
the former name
being still some-
times used in Es-
sex.
It does not often
appear inland in the
county during sum-
mer, but on June 16th
1883, I saw a party
of five Gulls—pre-
sumably of this species—fly over here in an easterly direction. On May 12th,
1880, I saw a pair of Gulls, I believe of this species, fly over Saffron Walden,
and on August 20th in the following year Mr. Travis received a young bird of the
year shot near the town. Edward Doubleday states (15) that he met with it at
Epping "in a very exhausted state, after long stormy weather." Great numbers
frequent the Mucking Flats during winter (Sackett).
The earliest record we have of its breeding in the county is that of Fuller,
who in his Worthies of England (1662, p. 318)-says :—
" There is an island of some two hundred acres, near Harwich, in the parish
of Little Okeley, in the manour of Matthew Gilly, Esquire, called the Puit Island
from Puits [which are] in effect the sole inhabitants thereof. Some affirm them
[to be] called in Latin upulae, whilst others maintain that the Roman Language
doth not reach the name, nor [the Roman] Land afford the bird. On Saint George
his day [April 23rd] precisely (so I am informed by Captain Farmer of Newgate
Market, copyholder of the Island) they pitch on the Island, seldom laying fewer
than four, or more than six eggs. Great [is] their love to their young ones.
For though against foul weather they make to the mainland (a certain Prognos-
tick of Tempests), yet they always weather it out on the Island when hatching
their young ones, seldom sleeping whilst they sit on their eggs (afraid, it seems,
of Spring-tides) which signifieth nothing as to securing their eggs from the inun-
dation, but is an argument of their great Affection. Being [i.e., when] young,
they consist onely of bones, feathers, and lean flesh, which hath a raw gust fi.*,,
taste] of the sea. But Poulterers take them then and feed them with Gravel and
Curds (that is Physick and Food), the one to scour, the other to fat them in a
fortnight, and their flesh thus recruited is most delicious."
Four years later Merrett, who calls it the " Pewit," says (182), " Insula quae-
dam ab iis nomen fortitur in Essexia. Haec enim migrant praecise ad diem.
Divo Georgio Sacrum." Two years later, Charleton, in his Onomasticon Zoicon