THE CHANGES OF PLUMAGE OF THE LITTLE GULL 21 



to the immature birds already described, save only that, in the 

 June bird, the white tips of these feathers have become obsolete, 

 or nearly so, by wear. The tail is still barred with black ; 

 but the fork of the tail, which is such a well-marked feature 

 of Lams minutus in early youth, though sometimes forgotten, 

 has virtually disappeared. The lower parts are no longer 

 plain white ; they are tinged, in the fresh bird, with a lovely 

 pink hue. I believe that this bird, obviously a non-breeder, 

 was bred in the summer of 1892 ; and that, having spent its 

 first year, and the winter following, in immature dress, it 

 commenced in the summer of iSyj. to assume mature plumage, 

 though not the plumage of the nuptial season, but that of the 

 first adult winter. In other words, the Little Gull wears nest 

 plumage for the first two or three months of its existence, but 

 assumes the plumage of " the bird of the year " in the first 

 autumn, and retains this with modifications until it is two 

 years old ; it then begins to change the wing quills, as a 

 preliminary to passing into full ivinter dress in the following 

 autumn. The feet of the Little Gull probably become red 

 during the third winter. At all events, the feet of the bird 

 killed on 2 9th June were not red but flesh-coloured, as in the 

 younger birds which I have examined in the flesh. I have 

 not seen a bird assuming summer full breeding livery, though 

 I have examined a bird killed after the black head had 

 become donned. Mr. W. Evans reminds me that he has 

 recorded a Scottish specimen obtained, in the act of assuming 

 nuptial dress, on nth May (" Annals of Scottish Natural 

 History," 1897, p. 194). In this bird, "the tiny black 

 feathers, just bursting through their sheaths," made it apparent 

 that in one instance, at any rate, the hood would have been 

 acquired by an actual moult, and not by the old feathers 

 changing from white to black. It will of course be under- 

 stood that, though I have only referred directly to some eight 

 specimens in all in this little paper, I have nevertheless ex- 

 amined a good many others, which either were not local, or 

 were in one or other typical stage of plumage, and therefore 

 of no particular help in tracing the evolution of this exquisite 

 oiseau de mer, from its first brown and white dress to that of 

 the adult, with its jetty hood and pale ash-gray mantle. 

 Almost every Little Gull that has been obtained in Lakeland 



