GREAT BLACK-HEADED GULL 419 
DESCRIPTIVE CHARACTERS. 
PLUMAGE. Adult male nuptial—Head, black, with a 
small white patch above the eye and another below ; back 
and wings, ‘pearl’ grey; primaries, white towards their 
tips, tinged with light ‘french’ grey above; there,is a 
narrow streak of black along the outer web of the first 
primary ; neck, breast, abdomen, and tail, white. 
Adult female nuptial—Similar to the male plumage. 
Adult winter, male and female.— Differs from the 
nuptial plumage in that the head is white, streaked with 
greyish-brown and black, chiefly about the eye and the ear- 
coverts. 
Immature, male and female—Head, streaked with dark 
greyish-brown ; wing-coverts and scapulars, mottled with 
dark brown; tail, white, banded towards the extremity with 
dark brown. 
‘‘ Birds which have assumed the black hood for the first 
time exhibit black streaks next the shafts of the primaries 
1—3 and black bars on 1—5, until the following moult ”’ 
(Saunders). 
Beak. Red, with a darkish band in front of the angle ; 
strongly built. 
FEET. Red. 
Ir1DES. Dark brown. 
Eaes. Dull white shading to cream, blotched and 
streaked with dark brown: clutch, two to three. 
AYERAGE MEASUREMENTS. 
TOTAL LENGTH 
ia pace Satie eah als 
WING ee eat at = etme Lt oS ae 
BEAK eee 
TARSO- -METATARSUS Oars 
Eas 22 xX 14a 
GREAT BLACK-HEADED GULL. Larus ichthyaétus (Pallas). 
Colowred Pigures. —Dresser, ‘ Birds of Europe,’ vol. viii, pl. 598 ; 
Lilford, ‘ Coloured Figures,’ vol. vi, pl. 21. 
There appears to be but one British record of this 
South-eastern species, the largest of the ‘hooded’ Gulls. 
