ADRIATIC BLACK-HEADED GULL. 333 



March it usually assumes tlie black head, but numerous 

 instances are on record of its appearing in the nuptial 

 plumage much earlier. On the 26th December, 1878, 

 Mr. Norgate tells me he picked up the remains of a 

 gull with a black head, barred tail, mottled wing 

 coverts, red bill, and brown legs ; he has also met 

 with specimens more than once which had assumed the 

 black head in December or January ; and Mr. Stevenson 

 records in the " Zoologist " for 1871, p. 2599, the occur- 

 rence of one of these birds at Beeston, in the very severe 

 January of that year, which exhibited an unusually 

 early state of change from winter to summer plumage. 



With us this species is variously known as the 

 " cob," " Scoulton gull," " puit," " puit gull," or " coddy 

 moddy." 



LARUS MELANOCEPHALUS, batterer. 

 ADEIATIC BLACK-HEADED GULL. 



Li the "Zoologist" for 1887, p. 69, Mr. George 

 Smith, of Yarmouth, records an example of the Adriatic 

 or Mediterranean black-headed gull, which was killed 

 on Breydon, on the 26th December, 1886, and came 

 into his possession. I am indebted to him for the op- 

 portunity of examining the bird in the flesh. It was 

 fully adult, and of course in winter plumage, and 

 proved, on dissection, to be a male. Like so many 

 other rarities, its capture, Mr. Smith tells me, was quite 

 accidental, as the man who shot it was simply waiting 

 for some bird at which to discharge a cartridge he could 

 not extract, and the first to present itself was this rarity. 

 It was exhibited at a meeting of the Zoological Society 

 by Mr. Howard Saunders on 18th January, 1887. 



The only other example of this species recorded as 

 having been killed in the British Islands was one ob- 

 tained by Mr. Whitely, of Woolwich, who, without recog- 

 nizing it, sold it to the British Museum. This example 

 was a bird of the preceding year, and is said to have 

 been shot in January, 1866, near Barking creek (" Ibis," 

 1872, p. 79). 



