LARug. 3] 9 



LaruS ichthysetus, Pall. It. ii. App. No. 27; {Caspian,) id. Zooyr. 

 Rosso. As. ii. p. 322 ; Tristram, Ibis, 1868, p. 30 ; [Palestine) Shelley, 

 B. of Egypt, p. 307; Dnsser, B. Evr. pt. xviii. ; Str. F. i. 276 ; Murray, 

 lldhk., ZooL, <^^c,, Sind, p. 247. Kroikocephalus iclathyaetuSj Pall. ; 

 Jerd. B. Lid. iii. p. 831. — The Great Black-headed Gull. 



Summer Plumage. — Entire head and upper half of neck black; or- 

 bital feathers white ; mantle, back, scapulars and wings bluish grey ; 

 entire lower parts, tail, and tapper tail-coverts white ; in immature 

 plumage the tail has a black band ; primaries with a black band, in- 

 creasing in width to the outermost one, which has the whole of the 

 outer web and half of the inner web black ; rest of the first primaries 

 grey, tipped with white; bill wax yellow, vermilion red at the tip, with 

 a black bar across both mandibles ; the extreme tip orange yellow. 



Length. — 28'b to 29 inches, wing IQ'O to 20-0, bill at front 2*6 to 

 2-7, tail 7-5 to 7-7. 



Hab. — Sind and Mekran Coasts, also the larger inland lakes of 

 Sind, Pei'sian Gulf, the Punjab, N. W. Provinces, Bengal, the Concan, 

 Bombay, and South India (Madras). 



Laras ridibundus, Lin. Syst. Nat. i. p. 225; Gotdd. B. Eur. 

 pi. 425 ; Jerd. B. Lid. iii. p. 832 ; Str. F. i. 278 ; Murray, Hdhk., 

 ZooL, Src, Sind, p. 278, — The Laughing Gull. 



Head and upper part of the neck all round deep reddish or blackish 

 brown ; lower neck, breast, abdomen, vent, under and upper tail-coverts 

 and tail white ; mantle, tertials and secondaries pale ashy ; four or five 

 lower primary coverts white, the rest pale ashy ; primaries white, 

 outer web, except for about an inch of the tip, and edge of the inner 

 web of first primary black ; second primary broadly edged on the 

 inner web, and tipped with black on the outer web ; at about the 

 terminal third of the quill a narrow black margin about an inch in 

 length ; third primary white on the outer web, greyish on the inner, 

 broadly margined and tipped with black, and for about two inches 

 from the tip a margin on the outer web; 4th primary the same; rest 

 pale grey; the fifth, sixth and seventh narrowly tipped with black; the 

 inner primaries and some of the secondaries dark shafted ; bill and leo-s 

 deep red; irides dark brown. 



Length. — 15-5 to 17 inches, wing 13'0 to 13-5, tail 4-75 to 5-5, bill 

 at front 137 to r75. 



In winter plumage, the head and neck are white, and there is a dark 

 spot in front of the eye and another near the ear-coverts ; the primaries 

 too differ in their markings ; the fii'st is white, with the outer web 

 black, also the margin of the inner one and the tip, the second is similar, 

 but the black outer web begins from the tip of its covert, and the inner 

 web and tip is margined more broadly with black ; the black of the 

 outer web of the third is still less, and it decreases also in the fourth, 

 the inner web of which is greyish instead of white and broadly margined 

 and tipped with black, the rest are greyish with black tips, except 

 the two last, which has besides a small white spot terminally ; the first 



