388 BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 



times on the marshes, at other times on the low small islands; 

 a colony of this kind existed on Great Actaeon Island in 

 D'Entrecasteanx's Channel when I visited it in 1838. 



The flight of this little Gull is light and buoyant in the 

 extreme, it runs over the surface of the ground with lightness 

 and great facility, and is altogether one of the most beautiful 

 and fairy -like birds I have ever met with. 



Its nest is formed of a few rushes and grasses, and it lays 

 four or five eggs, which differ considerably in colour, hardly 

 any two being alike ; the ground colour varying from pale 

 greenish to dark brownish olive ; in some instances slightly, 

 in others largely blotched and streaked with blackish brown ; 

 they also vary in shape, some being shorter and thicker than 

 others. 



The two sexes are precisely alike in colour, and may be thus 

 described : — 



Head, neck, all the under surface, spurious wing, rump, 

 and tail white ; back and wings delicate grey ; primaries 

 white, eccentrically marked with black, largely on their inner 

 and narrowly on their outer webs, and largely tipped with the 

 same hue, with a slight fringe of white at the extremity ; eye- 

 lash, bill, legs and feet deep blood-red ; nails black ; irides 

 pearl-white. 



Sp. 598. BRUCHIGAVIA GOULDI, Bonaparte. 

 Gould's Silver Gull. 



Larus nova-hoUandia, var., Blyth, Cat. of Birds in Mus. Asiat. Soc, 



p. .289. 

 Gavia jamesoni ei gouldi, Bruch. 



Gelastes gouldi, Bonap. Compt. Rend, de I'Acad. Sci., torn. xli. 

 Bruchigavia gouldi, Bonap. Comp. Gen. Av., torn. ii. p. 2.28 ; Bruchi- 



gavia, sp. 2. 



This is the bird spoken of in the folio edition as being from 

 Torres Straits, and larger in all its admeasurements than the 

 B. jamesoni of the south coast. My view of its being/fepeci- 



