PRELIMINARY CLASSIFIED NOTES 67 



build, black beak and legs, and the long pointed feathers of the nape, which form a 

 kind of crest. (See also p. 101.) The sexes are alike, and the only seasonal change 

 of plumage is confined to the black area of the head. (PL 102.) Length 16'5 in. 

 [4 19 '10 mm.]. In summer the forehead, crown, and nape are black, the nape 

 feathers being long and pointed, forming an incipient crest ; the rest of the upper 

 parts pearl-grey save the rump and tail, which are white. The under parts are 

 white, tinged with a delicate salmon-pink. The beak is black with a semitransparent 

 yellowish tip, and the legs and toes are black. After the autumn moult the fore- 

 part of the crown is white, and the nape is mottled with white. The juvenile 

 plumage of the crown is barred with black and white, and the rest of the upper 

 parts are variegated by submarginal dusky loops. A dusky band extends along the 

 wing formed by the marginal and minor coverts, and the tail feathers have a 

 subterminal bar of black. The under parts are white. The downy young are buff 

 coloured, irregularly mottled with grey and black, but around the eye are a number 

 of irregular loops of black, and there is a more or less distinct black line over the 

 scapular region, bounded on either side by a band of buffish white. (See also p. 105.) 

 [w. P. P.] 



2. Distribution. In the British Isles the colonies of this species are not 

 numerous. It no longer breeds regularly in the Scillies, Kent, or Norfolk, though 

 attempts have been made to do so of late years. At the Fames, however, as well as 

 at Ravenglass in Cumberland, there are large colonies, although Walney is now 

 deserted. In Scotland it has been known to nest in some numbers near the mouth 

 of the Findhorn, and was found breeding on N. Ronaldshay in the Orkneys in 1893, 

 while it formerly bred on Loch Lomond, and does so at the present time in Kircud- 

 bright. In Ireland there are now several thriving colonies in Co. Mayo (near 

 Ballina and on Lough Conn), one in Fermanagh (on Lough Erne), and two small 

 colonies on marine islands in Down. On the Continent there are large colonies in 

 Jylland, and in the Cattegat, Denmark, and in the N. Frisian Isles, as well as off the 

 W. German and Dutch coasts, and in the Channel Islands. A few breed in Spain, 

 as well as in the Canaries, and in the Mediterranean it nests commonly in Tunisia, 

 and is said to breed in Sardinia, Sicily, and on the coast of Italy, as well as in some 

 numbers in the Black and Caspian Seas. In America it is replaced by a closely 

 allied form, which breeds from the New England coast south to Honduras. The 

 winter range of this species in Africa extends south to Cape Colony and Natal : 

 in Asia it ranges to the Red Sea, Persian Gulf, and the Sind coast, while the American 

 form has been recorded from Colombia. [F. c. E. J.j 



