BLACK-HEADED GULL 417 
Geographical distribution.—Abroad, the Black-headed 
Gull breeds over the greater part of the European Con- 
tinent, from about lat. 65° N. in Norway and Sweden, 
and from Archangel in Russia southward to the Mediterra- 
nean. Eastward it can be traced over Temperate Asia, as 
a nesting-species to Kamtschatka. On its autumn and 
winter migration it reaches North Africa, Tropical Asia 
(including India and China), the Philippines and Japan. 
DESCRIPTIVE CHARACTERS. 
PLUMAGE.’ Adult male nuptial.Head and upper neck, 
dark brown (not black as the bird’s name implies); back 
and wings, ‘french’ grey; outer primaries, chiefly white, 
with black tips and blackish bands along the inner webs; 
inner primaries, chiefly ‘french’ grey tipped with black ; 
secondaries, pale ‘pearl’ grey; rest of plumage including 
tail, white, the breast being suffused with a very delicate 
evanescent pink. 
Adult female nuptial.—Similar in plumage to the male. 
Adult winter, male and female.—The dark coloration 
of the head (hood) is replaced by white in the early autumn, 
but the head never gets completely white, a few black 
patches remaining about the regions of the eye and the ear. 
Immature, male and female.—The wings and back are 
splashed with warm chestnut-brown, which extends for 
some distance up the back of the neck?; much of this 
colour disappears during the first autumn, but the wing- 
coverts remain dappled, and the tail banded with brown 
' [have obtained specimens which were only beginning to lose their 
‘hoods’ in the middle of November, and others which had assumed their 
new nuptial hood-feathers in December and January. I have notes of 
sickly birds and those subjected to captivity which moulted from summer 
to winter-plumage rather slowly. On December 16th I picked up a 
freshly-killed specimen on the Dublin coast in a very emaciated condition ; 
it was just beginning to shed its dark hood-feathers. But early Feb- 
ruary is the usual time at which the ‘hood’ is assumed, and this plu- 
mage is retained until about the middle of July. By August most of 
the birds have changed into winter-garb. Immature birds do not 
assume the ‘ hood’ in their first spring until March or April, and in some 
cases not until the following spring. 
* Some young birds lose the chestnut-brown on the back and neck 
much earlier than others. On July 27th, 1900, I examined a specimen 
which had lost much of this coloration, whereas on October 23rd, I 
obtained a bird still retaining all the immature markings. 
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