302 BRITISH BIRDS. 



Caspian, the basin of the Mediterranean, and the west coasts of France 

 and Spain. It is said to breed as far north as Archangel, an assertion 

 which is corroborated by the fact that Finsch procnred young in first 

 plumage north of Obdorsk. It has once occurred in North India. The 

 Little Gull has no very near ally. 



Although the Little Gull, like most of the other Black-headed Gulls, is 

 an inland bird during the breeding-season, and is occasionally seen on 

 sheets of fresh water during winter, especially at the mouths of rivers, it 

 principally frequents the sea-coasts and the lagoons near the shore after 

 its young are reared. This small Gull has a somewhat desultory flight. 

 It is not nearly so wild and difficult to approach as most Gulls are, and at 

 all seasons of the year is more or less gregarious, and even in winter may 

 be seen in small parties flying along the coast or floating on the waves. 

 Its note is described by Naumann as short and screeching and as different 

 from that of any other Gull or Tern. Its food in summer consists 

 chicflv of insects, many of which it catches on the wing, like a Swallow or 

 a Goatsucker ; but in winter it feeds principally on marine animals of 

 various kinds, Avhich it picks up on the shore or finds floating on the 

 water ; and both in summer and winter small fishes have been found in its 

 stomach. 



The Little Gull remains late in its winter-quarters, in consequence of 

 the lateness of the summer in the northern latitudes in which it breeds. 

 The accounts of its having bred in Holland, Turkey, and South Russia 

 are doubtless erroneous, the fact of its remaining in its winter-quarters 

 until ISIay having caused the observers to take for granted that it must 

 have been breeding at that time. It disappears from the Black Sea about 

 the middle of IMay, and migrates at once to its breeding-quarters, leaving 

 them again early in August, and reappearing in the south some time during 

 September. 



The best-known breeding-place of the Little Gull is near Lake Ladoga, 

 where there are several colonies, which have been described by various 

 writers. Blasius visited this interesting breeding-place in 1840, and it 

 was afterwards described by Lilljeborg, who went there four years after- 

 wards, and by Meves, who explored it in 1869. There are other breeding- 

 colonies of the Little Gull in the same district ; and I have a fine series of 

 their eggs, collected by my friend the late M. Valerian Russow, at the 

 mouth of the river Kassarien, in Esthonia, in 1873. In many of these 

 colonics the Little Gull was found breeding in company with the Common 

 Tern — a rather unfortunate circumstance for egg-coUcctors, as the eggs of 

 the two species are absolutely indistinguishable. Meves supposed that he 

 had discovered a mode of distinguishing the eggs of the two species by the 

 colour of the yolk, that of the Gull being rich orange-red, whereas that of 

 the Tern was ochre-yellow. In describing the eggs of the Little Gull, Meves 



