l l l.ACK-HE.\DEJ> QTJLL.
1 Familiar in our curs as household words/ the one as much so as
the other: there arc several Galleries, so I may call them, places where
these Gulls breed, and 1 proceed to enumerate the principal of them.
A famous resort for these birds is Twigmoor, near Glandford Brigg,
in Lincolnshire, the estate of Sir John Nelthorpe, Bart., where as many
as from ten to twenty thousand may be seen in the breeding-season;
also near Scawby.
Dr. Plot, in his History of Staffordshire, gives a curious, not to say
strange and marvellous, account of their annual visit to that couutv,
for a copy of which, as follows, I am indebted to Thomas George
Bouncy, Esq., of Churchdale House, near Rugeley:—
' lint the strangest whole-footed water-fowle that frequents this county
is the 'Lams cinereus,' Ornithologi, the 'Larus cinercus tertius,'
Aldrovandi, and the ' C e p p h u s 1 of Gesner and Turner; in some counties
called the Black-cap, in others the Sea or Mire Crow; here the Pewit;
which being of the migratory kind, come annually to certain pooles in
the estate of the Right Worshipfull Sir Charles Skrymsher, Knight, to
build and breed, and to no other estate in or ncer the county, but of
this family, to which they have belonged ' u l t r a hominum memoriam,'
and never moved from it, though they have changed their station often.
They anciently came to the old Pewit poole above mentioned, about half
a mile S.W. of Xorbury Church, but it being their strange quality (as
the whole family will tell you, to whom I refer the reader for the
following relation) to be disturbed and remove upon the death of the
head of the family, as they did within memory, upon the death of James
Skrymsher, Esq., to Offley Moss, near Woods Eves, which Moss, though
containing two gentlemen's land, yet (which is very remarkable) the
Pewits did discern betwixt the one and the other, and build only on
the land of the next heir, John Skrymsher, Esq., so wholly are they
addicted to this family.
At which Moss they continued about three years, and then removed
to the old Pewit poole again, where they continued to the death of the
late said John Skrymsher, Esq., which happening on the eve to our
Lady day, the very time when they are laying their eggs, yet so concerned
were they at this gentleman's death, that notwithstanding this
t y e of the Law of Nature, which has ever been held to be universal
and perpetual, they left their nest and eggs; and though they made
some attempts of laying again at Offley Moss, yet they were still so
disturbed that they bred not at all that year. The next year after they
went to Aqualat, to another gentleman's estate of the same family,
(where though tempted to stay with all the care imaginable,) yet
continued there but two years, anil then returned again to another
1U vt K - H E A D E D GULL, 131
poole of the next heir of John Skrymsher, deceased, called Shebben
poole. in the Parish of High Offley, where they continue to this day,
and seem to be the propriety, as I may say, (though a wild-fowle,) of
the Right Worshipfull Sir Charles Skrymsher, Knight, their present
Lord and Master.
But being of the migratory kind their first appearance is not till
about the latter end of February, and then in number scarce above
six, which come, as it were, as harbingers to the rest, to see
whether the hafts or islands in the pooles, (upon which they build
their nests,) be prepared for them, but these never so much as
lighten, but fly over the poole, scarce staying an hour; about the
sixth of March following there comes a pretty considerable flight, el'
a hundred or more, and then they alight on the hafts, and stay all
day, but are gone again at night. About our Lady day or sooner,
in a forward spring, they come to stay for good, otherwise not till
the beginning of April, when they build their nests, which they
make not of sticks, but of leaves and rushes, making them but
shallow, and laying generally but four eggs, three and five more
rarely, which are about the bigness of a small hen's egg.
The hafts or islands are prepared for them between Mieldemas
and Christmas, by cutting down the reeds and rushes, and pulling
them aside in the nooks and corners of the hafts, and in the valleys,
to make them level, for should they be permitted to rot on the
islands the Pewits would not endure them. After three weeks' sitting
the young ones are hatched, and about a month after are ready to
rive, which usually happens on the third of June, when the proprietor
of the poole orders them to he driven and catch'd, the Gentry
comeing in from all parts to sec the sport; the manner thus,—they
pitch a rabbit-net on the bank side, in the most convenient place
over against the hafts, the net in the middle being about ten yards
from the side, but close at the ends in the manner of a bow; then
six or seven men wade into the poole beyond the Pewits over against
the net, with long staves, and drive them from the hafts, whence
they all swim to the bank side, and landing, run like Lap wings
into the net, where people standing ready, take them up and put
them into two penns made within the bow of the net, which are built
round, about three yards diameter and a yard length or somewhat
better, with small stakes driven into the ground in a circle, and
interwoven with broom and other raddle.
I n which manner there have been taken of them in one morning
fifty dozens at a driving.
But they commonly appoint three days of driving them, within