BLACK-HEADED GULL. 265 



On the 23rd of February, 1853, I received a so-called 

 Masked Gull, Larus capistratus, which had been taken alive 

 off Brighton, on a hook baited with liver. I turned it down 

 on my pond, hoping to observe its changes of plumage. On 

 the 2J;th of April in the same year I find this note : — " The 

 Gull caught off Brighton, February 22nd, has this day 

 completed its change from the winter to the summer 

 plumage, having assumed a black, or rather dark brown 

 semi-hood on the upper part of the head, not extending 

 backward beyond the eyes — the back of the head, as well as 

 that of the neck, remaining pure wliite.'^ It fed well on 

 barley and oats. By the 4th of August it had assumed a few 

 speck-like white feathers round the eyes, and they remained 

 unchanged till late in the month of September, when it 

 resumed its winter plumage, the same as when I first 

 received it. The next spring the changes were similar, but 

 on December 4th, 1854, I was sorry to find it dead and 

 nearly eaten by a Great Black-backed Gull, by which it hud 

 never before been ill-treated, having lived with it in amity 

 for many months. 



[Respecting the Laughing Gull, L. atricilla, which was 

 admitted as a British species in the three former editions of 

 Yarrell, I find the following among some notes kindly lent 

 me by Mr. Thomas Parkin, of Halton, Hastings : — " At a 

 meeting of the Zoological Society, held early in March 1884, 

 Mr. Howard Saunders made some observations on the 

 specimen of L. atricilla in the British Museum, said to be 

 the one killed by Montagu at Winchelsea, and came to the 

 conclusion that the bird in question was not that of Mon- 

 tagu." Accordingly, in the last edition of Yarrell (vol. iii. 

 p. 606j, he states that it was admitted into the British list 



