102 
IIEEKING GULL. 
coverts, white; under tail coverts, white; legs and toes, pale 
yellowish grey, with a tinge of light red. 
The autumnal moult begins about the middle of August, 
and a partial spring moult about the middle of February, 
when the mottled feathers of winter are discharged, and the 
pure white of summer restored. 
The female is less in size than the male, her measurement 
being about one foot ten inches or over, to one foot eleven 
inches. 
The young are at first mottled with brown and dull white; 
the quills dusky, with no white at the tips, the tail with 
a dusky bar at the end, the bill horn-colour, the iris dusky, 
and the legs dark. Subsequently in the first year the bill 
is blackish grey at the tip, the remainder pale yellowish red; 
iris, dark; head, crown, neck, and nape, greyish white, streaked 
and mottled with pale brown; chin, nearly white; throat and 
breast, greyish white, streaked and marbled with pale yellowish 
brown. Back, a mixture of different shades of grey and pale 
yellowish brown, the feathers being edged with pale rufous; 
primaries, greyish black. Tail, marked at its base with white 
and brown, more white in the second year, the rest brown, 
but the tip a pale rufous yellow. Legs and toes, pale yel¬ 
lowish red. 
They do not arrive at maturity till the third year; the 
following account of their change of plumage is from Montagu; 
—‘In the second year the colours continue the same, but 
rather lighter; in the autumnal moulting the back becomes 
ash-colour, the iris gets lighter, inclining to yellow, the bill 
the same. In the next change we find the wing coverts still 
mottled with brown, the head and neck streaked with dusky 
brown, the bar in the tail broken by numerous white undu¬ 
lated streaks running down the webs; ins and bill yellowish.’ 
