THE CHANGES OF PLUMAGE OF THE LITTLE GULL 17 



But before I attempt to explain the evolution of plumage 

 which appears to characterise this diminutive sea - bird, 

 perhaps 1 may be allowed to enumerate the specimens 

 which have come under my notice since the autumn of 



1893 in the neighbourhood of the Solway Firth. Of 

 course the number may appear inconsiderable to East Coast 

 naturalists ; for the Little Gull is a comparatively rare bird 

 at any time in Western Britain. In 1893 an immature bird 

 was shot upon Rockliffe Marsh by a man named Park, who 

 procured it on the 25th of October. It was sent to me 

 through the kind offices of the late Mr. A. Smith of Castle- 

 town. It proved to be a female. On the I 3th of January 



1894 I received another immature bird, which had been 

 killed by Irving Murray at Priestside, near Annan. 



In June of the same year (1894) a single Little Gull 

 made its appearance on the estuary of the Wampool and 

 Waver, near Silloth. It associated with the numerous 

 Brown -headed Gulls (Lams ridibimdus], old and young, 

 which were then clustering on the sands, and showed a 

 partiality for the open portion of the widest creek upon 

 Skinburness Marsh. After it had haunted the vicinity for a 

 week or ten days, it was shot on the 29th of June by a 

 fisherman, who mistook it for a specimen of Bonaparte's 

 Gull (Larus philadelpliid], which he only knew from the 

 figure in Mr. Saunders' Manual. No Little Gulls came 

 under my notice in 1895, nor did I hear of any in 1896, 

 until the i6th of September, when a man named Peal 

 brought me a specimen which he had just shot on the north 

 side of the river Esk, opposite Rockliffe Marsh. This bird, 

 when first observed, was hovering over the water very much 

 like a Tern, so he said, and appeared to be in pursuit of 

 winged insects. Upon dissecting this specimen, I found a 

 single beetle in its stomach. 



On the 9th of October, in the same year, my friend 

 Mr. Thomas Mann shot another Little Gull on the coast near 

 Allonby (where I now reside). He told me that the flight 

 of this bird, which he most generously presented to me, 

 resembled that of a Tern rather than that of a Gull. I 

 neither saw nor heard of any Little Gulls in 1897. But in 

 January 1898, Peal the wild-fowler shot another Little Gull 

 29 C 



