Mr. H. Seebohm on the Ornithology of Siberia. 162 
several occasions I saw large Gulls without the black tips to 
the wing-feathers, which were doubtless L. glaucus. 
Larus arFinis, Reinhardt. 
This yellow-legged Herring-Gull, with a mantle nearly as 
dark as that of L. fuscus, was first seen on the 81st of May. 
During the breaking up of the ice the wild cries of these birds 
were an appropriate accompaniment to thé grand crash which 
shipwrecked us in the Koo-ray’-i-ka. As the ice broke up 
further north these Gulls left us ; and we saw them no more 
until we reached lat. 69°. Here a large colony frequented an 
island in the river where several parties of Russians and Ost’- 
yaks were fishing. This colony was almost entirely composed 
of birds in immature plumage ; and there was nothing to lead 
us to suppose that any of them were breeding. Between 
lat. 704° and 714° we passed several breeding-stations of these 
birds, where it was a very rare thing to see a Gull in imma- 
ture plumage. I should have been too late to secure fresh 
eggs ofthis species; but, fortunately, [had chartered a Russian 
at Brek’-off-sky and a Samoyede at Gol-cheek’-a to collect 
for me, and at each station I found a large basket of unblown 
eggs. As might have been expected, they vary somewhat in 
size and colour, and are not distinguishable from eggs of L. 
fuscus or L. argentatus. So far as it is possible-to compare 
the cries of birds from memory, I may confidently affirm 
that these do not vary from those of ZL. argentatus or L. 
cachinnans. 
When I was in St. Petersburg Russow was kind enough 
to unpack for me the whole of the splended series of Gulls in 
the Museum, which gave me an opportunity of obtaining some 
valuable information as to the geographical distribution of 
these closely allied species. Larus affinis appears to breed in 
the extreme north of Europe and Asia from the White Sea 
to Kamchatka. It has been obtained in the breeding-season 
on Bear Island, south of Solovetsk, in the White Sea (Midd., 
in Mus Petr.), on the Petchora (Seebohm & Harvie Brown), on 
the Ob (Finsch & Brehm), on the Yen-e-say', on the Boganida 
and Taimyr, near the North-east Cape (Mzdd., in Mus. Petr.), 
[77] 
