718 LARID^E. 



red at the tip, with a black bar across both mandibles ; the extreme tip orange 

 yellow. 



Length. 28* 5^ 29 inches ; wing 19-0 to 2o ! o ; bill at front 2-6 to 27 ; 

 tail 7*5 to 77. 



J] a l t Sind and Mekran Coasts, also the larger inland lakes of Sind, Per- 

 sian Gulf, the Punjab, N.-W. Provinces, Bengal, the Concan, Bombay, and 

 South India (Madras). 



1423. Larus ridibundus, Linn., Syst. Nat. \. p. 225 ; Gould, B. 



Eur. pi. 425; Jerd., B. Ind. iii. p. 832; Sir. F. i. p. 278; Murray, Hdbk., 

 Zool., fyc., Sind, p. 278 ; id., Vert. Zool, Smd, p. 319. The LAUGHING 

 GULL. 



Head and upper part of the neck all round deep reddish or blackish brown ; 

 lower neck, breast, abdomen, vent, under and upper tail coverts and tail white ; 

 mantle, tertials and secondaries pale ashy; four or five lower primary coverts 

 white, the rest pale ashy ; primaries white, outer web, except for about an inch 

 of the tip and edge of the inner web of first primary black; second primary 

 broadly edged on the inner web and tipped with black on the outer web ; at 

 about the terminal third of the quill a narrow black margin about an inch in 

 length ; third primary white on the onter web, greyish on the inner, broadly 

 margined and tipped with black, and for about two inches from the tip a 

 margin on the outer web; 4th primary the same; rest pale grey; the fifth, sixth 

 and seventh narrowly tipped with black ; the inner primaries and some of the 

 secondaries dark shafted ; bill and legs deep red]; irides dark brown. 



Length. 1$'$ to 17 inches ; wing 13-0 to 13-5 ; tail 475 to 5-5 ; bill at front 

 1-37 to 175. 



In winter plumage, the head and neck are white, and there is a dark spot 

 in front of the eye and another near the ear coverts ; the primaries too differ 

 in their markings ; the first is white, with the outer web black, also the margin 

 of the inner one and the tip, the second is similar, but the black outer web 

 begins from the tip of its covert, and the inner web and tip is margined more 

 broadly with black ; the black of the outer web of the third is still less, and it 

 decreases also in the fourth, the inner web of which is greyish instead of white, 

 and broadly margined and tipped with black, the rest are greyish with black 

 tips, except the two last, which has besides a small white spot terminally ; the 

 first three primary quills agree well with the plate in P. Z. S., 1878, p. 2oi, 

 (Saunders on the Larince.) 



Hal. Sind, in the Kurrachee harbour, and on the inland lakes ; the Mek- 

 ran Coast, Persian Gulf, rivers of the Punjab and Bengal, at Bombay, also the 

 Mediterranean Coast to Egypt, Asia Minor, the Red Sea and Arabian 

 Coast. 



