ks
it as occurring in Guernsey and Sark. There are two, an old and a young
bird, in the Museum.

168. LESSER BLACK-BACKED GULL. _Larus fuscus_, Linnaeus. French,
"Goeland a pieds jaunes."--The Lesser Black-backed Gull is common in the
Islands, remaining throughout the year and breeding in certain places.
None of these birds breed in Guernsey itself, or on the mainland of
Sark, and very few, if any, on Alderney. A few may be seen, from time to
time, wandering about all the Islands during the breeding-season; but
these are either immature birds or wanderers from their own
breeding-stations. About Sark a few pairs breed on Le Tas[33] and one or
two other outlying islets; their principal breeding-stations, however,
appear to be on the small rocky islands to the north of Herm, on all of
which, as far out as the Amfrocques, we found considerable numbers
breeding, or rather attempting to do so; for this summer, 1878, having
been generally fine, all these rocks were tolerably easily landed on,
and the fishermen had robbed the Lesser Black-backs to an extent which
threatens some day to exterminate them, in spite of the Guernsey Bird
Act, which professes to protect the eggs as well as the birds; but a far
better protection for these poor Black-backs is a roughish summer, when
landing on these islands is by no means safe or pleasant, and frequently
impossible. On Burhou, near Alderney, there are also a considerable
number of Lesser Black-backs breeding, though they fare quite as badly
from the Alderney and French fishermen as those on the Amfrocques and
other islands north of them do from the Guernsey fishermen. On all these
islands the nests of the Lesser Black-backs were placed amongst the
bracken, sea stock, thrift, &c, which grew amongst the rocks, and on the
shallow soil which had collected in places. When I was at Burhou in 1876
I found Lesser Black-backs breeding all over the Island, some of the
nests being placed on the low rocks, some amongst the bracken and
thrift; so thickly scattered amongst the bracken were the nests, that
one had to be very careful in walking for fear of treading on the nests
and breaking the eggs. On this Island there is an old deserted cottage,
sometimes used as a shelter by the lessees of the Island, who go over
there to shoot a few wretched rabbits which pick up a precarious
subsistence by feeding on the scanty herbage; on the roof of this
cottage several of the Lesser Black-backs perched thems