64 
BUONAPARTE’S GULL. 
In Ireland, one of these Gfulls was killed on the River Lagan, 
near Belfast, on the 1st. of February, 1848, and the Hon. T. 
L. Powys has favoured me with information of another having 
been shot by a brother officer of his, near Skerries, north of 
Dublin, C. W. Watkins, Esq., of Badby House, Northampton¬ 
shire, who writes me word that this occurred in the winter of 
1855-6, namely, February 14th. He shot it himself, and has 
very obligingly forwarded the specimen for the use of this work. 
These birds congregate in large flocks, and that so closely 
together, that Audubon mentions his son’s having shot seven¬ 
teen at a single discharge, so to speak, of a double-barrelled 
gun. They associate with the Terns. They are peculiarly 
tame and gentle in their habits. 
They feed on shrimps and other Crustacea, and fish—the 
shad and old wife among others, beetles and other insects, and 
portions of plants. 
The note is described as shrill and plaintive. 
Male; length, one foot three inches to one foot three inches 
and a half; bill, shining black, the inside of the mouth bright 
carmine red; iris, dark brown. Head on the crown and all 
over, greyish black, in winter white, except an oblong mark 
behind the eye on the side of the head, and a little of the 
same colour before, below, and above the eye, and a spot on 
the side of the head. Neck on the back and nape, greyish! 
black, in winter blackish mixed with white; chin and throat, 
greyish black, in winter white; breast, white, with a faint 
roseate tinge; hack, pale bluish grey. Lesser wing coverts, in 
winter bluish grey with brown markings; of the primaries, the 
first has the outer margin black, the second black on the end 
portion, the inner part white, the third less so in the same 
way, and least on the outer margin. The others terminated 
with brownish black, except at the extreme tip, ‘on the third 
the first indication of white appears in a mere line of that 
colour; thence it becomes gradually larger in size and deeper 
in shade to the seventh, when it assumes the pearl grey of the 
lower portion of the same feather. The black becomes more 
and more tinged with brow from the first primary to the 
last; the light-coloured tip, on the contrary, becomes gradually 
of a deeper shade from the third to the last. Shafts of all the 
primaries white, except the upper portion of the first, which 
is dusky. Black appears on the inner web of the three longest 
primaries, much lessening both in length and breadth from 
the first to the third.’ Underneath, the quills are white, except 
