198 



LABID^E. 



sea-shore and wander inland and northward. At this season they are 

 exclusively flesh-eaters, with a preference for fresh meat; and when 

 the hide has been stripped from a dead cow or horse they begin to 

 appear, vulture-like, announcing their approach with their usual long 

 hoarse pelagic cries, and occasionally, as they circle about in the air, 

 joining their voices in a laughter-like chorus of rapidly-repeated notes. 

 Their winter movements are very irregular; in some seasons they are 

 rare, and in others so abundant that they crowd out the Hooded Gulls 

 and Carrion-Hawks from the carcass ; I have seen as many as five to 

 six hundred Dominicans massed round a dead cow. 



417. LARUS MACULIPENNIS, Licht. 

 (SPOT-WINGED GULL.) 



Lams maculipennis, Sol. et Salu. Nomencl p. 148 ; Dumford, Ibis, 1877, p. 202 

 ' (Buenos Ayres), et 1878, p. 405 (Centr. Patagonia) ; White, P. Z. S. 1882, 

 p. 628 (Buenos Ayres) ; Sounders, P. Z. S. 1878, p. 201 ; Withington, Ibis, 

 1888, p. 472 (Looms de Zamora). Larus serranus, Burm. La-Plata Reise, 

 ii. p. 519. Larus cirrhocephalus, Scl et Salv. P. Z. S. 1868, p. 146 (Buenos 

 Ayres) ; Hudson, P. Z. S. 1871, p. 4. 



Three outer primaries of adult SPOT- WINGED GULL. 

 (P.Z. S. 1878, p. 202.) 



Description. Head and nape brownish-black (in breeding-dress) ; tail and 

 underparts white ; mantle pale grey ; primaries black or dark grey, tipped with 

 white, and with large elongated white patches on the outer portions of first to 

 fifth, followed by a subapical Hack bar (in L. glaucodes the lower portion is 

 white): under win g pale grey, bill, legs, and feet blood-red: length 16-0-17-0 

 inches, wing 11-5. 



Hab. Southern Brazil, Uruguay, and La Plata. 



This common Black-hooded Gull is found throughout the Argentine 

 country, down to Chupat in Patagonia, and is exceedingly abundant on 



