day on which the residents in the neighbourhood
begin to expect their visitors. If the weather
be open during the last few days of February,
small parties of these birds may be seen, from
twelve to twenty in number, soaring at a vast
height over the mere, apparently fulfilling the
duties of scouts, sent on to examine into the
state of affairs before the migration of the main
body. If their report be favourable, on or
about the 7th of March the air is filled with the
clamorous cries of the gulls, as they arrive,
after their long flight over sea and land, in view
of their long-accustomed haunt.

The punctuality of this migration, under ordinary
circumstances of weather, is most remarkable,
and has before now afforded to a neighbouring
clergyman an illustration of the text:
"The stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed
time; and the turtle, the crane, and the swallow,
observe the time of their coming." When the
season has been exceptionally severe, they have
not arrived en masse till a fortnight later;
occasionally the delay has been longer. When
they have fairly settled for the season, Scoulton
Mere becomes a scene of great animation. During
the day, the majority of the birds are absent
on foraging expeditions; but as evening draws
on, they assemble from every quarter, and the
sound of their united clamour is distinctly
audible, in calm weather, at two miles' distance.

It is a strange sight, to persons unacquainted
with the haunts and habits of these gulls, on
passing through the neighbourhood to see hundreds
of them following the plough, so greedily occupied
in devouring the grubs it exposes to
view, and so little terrified by the proximity of
man, as to sit or walk tranquilly in a long line
upon the last made furrow, until the next approach
of the team compels them to move, in
order to escape being trampled beneath the feet
of the horses.

Still more picturesque is the scene when (as
is often the case) a flock of gulls is intermixed
with a flock of rooks, the snowy plumage of the
one contrasting strikingly with the glossy black
feathers of the others.

Good friends to the farmer are the Laughing
Gulls. The chief object of their search, on
occasions like that above described, is the grub of
the cockchafer, which they devour wholesale
with infinite relish, thus to a great extent
nipping that pest in the bud. And not only in
the helpless form of the grub does the cockchafer
fall a prey to their ravenous beaks, but in its
winged and mature state as well.

On many a summer night, with a young moon
half illuminating the nearer parts of the
landscape, have I watched, for half an hour
together, the rapid, noiseless, and apparently
playful motions of half a dozen gulls, as they
circled round a spreading and lofty oak, in full
chase of their unattractive prey, appearing in
the silence and darkness more like white-winged
phantoms than fowls of the air.

About the middle of April, sometimes a little
earlier or a little later, they scratch a rough
hollow in the tops of the tussocks, which
erect themselves at short intervals upon the
Hearth, and there deposit their eggs. These
have a remarkable tendency to "sport" in
varieties widely different, both in size and
colouring. The most usual size is a little less
than that of an ordinary hen's egg, and more
gradually pointed toward the lesser end, while
the most common hue is of a dusky olive brown,
irregularly blotched with a darker shade. But
eggs are frequently found from the size of a
pigeon's to that of a bantam, occasionally diminishing
to the proportions of the egg of a thrush.

These eggs are a very marketable commodity,
and the operations attending their collection and
sale are carried on in a most business-like manner
by a keeper to whom this charge is entrusted.
Twice in the week, men provided with long water-
boots, and each armed with a long pole, proceed
to the Hearth, and visit the nests in systematic
order. Several thousands are thus weekly collected,
which find ready purchasers at the price
of one shilling a score: indeed, the demand
usually far exceeds the supply. Rumour asserts
that in the London markets they are sold, at a
profit of many hundred per cent, as plovers' eggs.
They are eaten cold, in a hard-boiled state, and
are deservedly esteemed as great delicacies.

When this plundering of the nests has been
carried on as long as is consistent with safety,
the birds are left undisturbed in the enjoyment
of their breeding-place, and in a few weeks'
time the surface of the mere is dotted with dark
little balls of down, swimming and diving in all
directions in precocious mimicry of their parents.
Early in July, the young birds attain sufficient
powers of flight to enable them to accompany
the elders on their visits to the ploughed fields
in the vicinity of their birthplace. Now is the
time to visit the mere, to appreciate the singular
aspect it presents when tenanted by its noisy
summer visitors.

Rowing quietly along till within a hundred
yards of the Hearth, you raise an oar perpendicularly,
and drop the blade flat upon the water.
Instantly, a dense white cloud rises from the
island, and, with piercing cries and threatening
gestures, the innumerable occupants fill the air
overhead and all around.

So rapid and sudden are their evolutions, and
so vast are their numbers, that one is constantly
expecting to see collisions take place among
them; but with command of wing equal to that
of the swallow, they wheel

            In and out
            And round about,

as if delighting in the display of their own
dexterity.

But August approaches: their object in
coming hither is accomplished, and they begin
to think of returning. One morning the dwellers
in the cottages bordering on the mere, awake to
find the clamour so long familiar to their ears,
hushed and gone. A mysterious instinct has
called the gulls back to their northern home,
and, save a few of the old and decrepid, or the
young and feeble, unable to join in the migration,