LAEIDM. 73 



bird in summer the bill is greenish grey at the base, towards the point yellow ; irides dark 

 brown, edges of the eye-lids red ; the whole head and neck pure white ; the back and all the 

 wing-coverts pearl-grey, secondaries and tertials the same, but broadly edged and tipped with 

 white ; primaries black on the outer web, with a small portion of pearl-grey at the base of tbe 

 inner web, the proportion of grey increasing on each primary in succession ; the first and 

 second primary with a patch of white ou both webs near the end, but the extreme tips of both 

 are black ; the third, fourth, fifth, have white tips, but the first set of primary quill-feathers, 

 which the young bird carries for the first fifteen months, have no white at the tips. Few 

 birds moult their first set of quill-feathers in their first autumn. Tail-coverts and tail-feathers 

 pure white ; chin, neck in front, breast, and all the under surface of the body and tail pure 

 white ; legs and feet dark greenish ash. The whole length of an old male, eighteen inches and 

 a half; of the wing, from the point, fourteen inches and a half. The length of an old female 

 about half an inch less ; and of the wing, half an inch less. In the winter the whole head and 

 the sides of the neck are streaked and spotted with dusky brown and ash-brown. A young 

 bird in its first autumn has the basal portion of the bill yellowish brown, the part anterior to 

 the nostrils nearly black ; irides dusky ; head, sides of the neck, the ear- coverts and occiput 

 dull white, mottled with greyish-brown ; the back, wing-coverts, secondaries and tertials 

 brownish-ash ; the feathers edged with paler brown ; a few bluish-grey feathers on the centre 

 and sides of the back ; the primaries nearly black, both as to the shafts and greater part of 

 the webs, all but the front being tipped with brown ; upper tail-coverts dull white ; tail-feathers 

 white, the outer half black, except the outer feather on each side, which has the outer web 

 white ; chin and throat white ; neck in front, the breast, and all the under surface of the body 

 mottled with light ash-brown, on a ground of white ; legs and feet pale greyish-brown ; the 

 claws black." 



This is one of the Gulls that occasionally build in trees, but never high up. As a rule, 

 they build in marsh or rock in some slight depression, which they fill up with grass or 

 sea-weed. They lay two or three eggs of a dark olive-brown, blotched over with black. 

 All my specimens are nearly exactly alike. 



The Lesser Black-backed Gull (Lams fusciis). — I had two immature specimens of 

 this species for some time in a garden in the hope of noting their change of plumage. 

 Unfortunately their thieving propensities more than counterbalanced my ornithological zeal, 

 and I was obliged to get rid of them before they arrived at the adult state. They would eat 

 anything, or try to ; nothing came amiss, — bread, meat, bones, newspapers, golf balls and 

 tennis balls ; one and all were taken to a large bowl of water to be well soaked, and then, if 



