440 LA RIDE. 



to resort to the same place for some time, the old ones were 

 too sliy to be procured. We also saw two others near 

 Hastings in Sussex. They may be easily known from the 

 Black -headed Gull even when flying ; the flight is diiferent ; 

 the bird appears much larger, and the tail shorter in pro- 

 portion."" No other examples, taken in this country, have 

 been recorded, that I am aware of; but Mr. Gould mentions 

 that the preservation of Montagu\s specimen in the British 

 Museum has afforded him the means of determining that it 

 is identical with the American bird. 



The following account of the habits of this Gull in the 

 United States, is derived from the Ornithological Biography 

 of Mr. Audubon: — 



" This species breeds, according to the latitude, from the 

 1st of March to the middle of June ; and I have thoui,dit 

 that on the Tortuga Keys, it produced two broods each sea- 

 son. In New Jersey, and farther to the eastward, the nest 

 resembles that of the Ring-billed Gull, or Common Ame- 

 rican Gull, Larus zoriorh^nchus, being formed of dried sea- 

 weeds, and land plants, two, and sometimes three, inches high, 

 with a regular rounded cavity, from four and a half to five 

 inches in diameter, and an inch and a half in depth. This 

 cavity is formed of finer grasses, placed in a pretty regular 

 circular form. I once found a nest formed as it were of 

 two ; that is to say, two pairs had formed a nest of nearly 

 double the ordinary size, and the two birds sat close to each 

 other during rainy weather, but separately, each on its own 

 three eggs. I observed that the males, as well as the fe- 

 males, thus concerned in this new sort of partnership, evinced 

 as much mutual fondness as if they were brothers. On the 

 Tortugas, where these Gulls also breed in abundance, I 

 found their eggs deposited in slight hollows scooped in the 

 sand. Whilst at Galveston, in Texas, I frnind their nests 

 somewhat less bulky than in the Jerseys, which proved to me 



