BIKDS OF ETHIOPIA AND KENYA COLONY 195 



dates, all the birds being in full nuptial plumage, some quite worn, 

 others much fresher. 



One specimen in the Museum of Comparative Zoology, an unsexed 

 bird from Mwanza, Tanganyika Territory (A. Loveridge collection) 

 is in second winter plumage, according to Dwight's terminology, 

 but nevertheless it has a few juvenal (brownish) upper lesser coverts 

 on each wing. It looks as though the bird retained those feathers for 

 two years, but, of course, it is impossible to be certain. If true, it 

 is a most remarkable period of feather retention. 



As recently as 1915 the breeding place, nest, and eggs of this gull 

 were unknown. Thus Grant '^^ wrote that — 



* * * it is worthy of note that, so far as I can learn, the exact breeding 

 place of this bird is not known, and the eggs have not yet been described 



* * *. Sir Frederick Jackson says that this gull breeds commonly on Lake 

 Naivasha, but I have not been able to examine eggs in siipport of this. 



While with the Smithsonian African expedition imder Col. Theo- 

 dore Roosevelt, Mearns found this gull breeding in numbers at Lake 

 Naivasha, and later, while with the Frick expedition he found it 

 nesting abundantly on Lakes Stefanie and Rudolf. Shortly before 

 his death, Mearns began a paper on the habits of this gull, based on 

 his experience with it on both expeditions. This manuscript, which 

 was never even approximately finished and rounded out, was found 

 together with his notes on the present collection, and I here qupte 

 a few paragraphs from it, as it is still the best account of the habits 

 of this bird. 



It was with feelings of delight that we reached the south shore of Lake 

 Naivasha from the dry and dusty Loita Plains south of the southern N'Guaso 

 Nyiro River. The green basin of Naivasha was refreshing by constrast, and 

 all the more interesting to the members of Colonel Roosevelt's hunting party 

 because it was the first fresh-water lake that we visited. We spent the first 

 night beside a stretch of sandy beach, at either end of which the rank growth 

 of papyrus claimed the shore line almost around the lake. Shore birds ran 

 upon the beech, and crested coots, moorhens, and grebes, together with many 

 ducks swam among the lily leaves and other aquatic vegetation ; and the 

 pretty jacanas ran gracefully upon the large leaves of the blue water lilies. 

 Above the water cormorants, terns, and gulls were flying in abundance 



* * *. Nothing was more attractive than the gray-headed gulls whose nests 

 occupied scattered tufts of papyrus and rushes beyond the denser rim of papy- 

 rus along the shore, into which the water birds swam to cover in the trails 

 made by the hippopotamuses. Most of the gulls' nests contained young, but a 

 few eggs were found. The parents came flying to the spot as we approached in 

 our small canvas boat, then neighboring pairs assembled and circled overhead 



uttering notes like those of the American laughing gull (Lams atricilla) 

 « * « 



™Ibis, 1915, p. 54. 

 94312—30 14 



