PRELIMINARY CLASSIFIED NOTES 119 



the hindmost scapulars, secondaries, and primaries are broadly tipped with white. 

 The rest of the plumage is pure white, suffused on the breast with a delicate salmon- 

 pink. Beak reddish brown, legs vermilion. In winter the forehead is white, 

 while the crown, nape, and hind-neck are French grey, like the mantle and wings, 

 which are as in summer. Behind and below the auriculars is a small black patch. 

 Immature birds have the upper parts brownish black varying in intensity indi- 

 vidually variegated by bars of white, which form the tips of the feathers ; these 

 bars are broadest on the scapulars. The wing-coverts are dusky, with similar 

 bars of white. The major coverts of the primaries are black, and the outermost 

 primaries have their outer webs black, and a band of slate colour along the shaft 

 of the inner web. The inner primaries are dark French grey, fading into white on 

 the inner web, and with a subterminal transverse bar of black and a white tip. 

 The under surface of the wing is white, not lead blue as in the adult. The tail, 

 which is slightly forked, has a terminal bar of black. Birds of the second year are 

 to be distinguished from adults by the broad black band across the wing, formed 

 by the minor wing-coverts, and the black tips to the outer tail feathers, [w. P. P.] 



2. Distribution. To the British Isles this species is an irregular visitor 

 in winter and on passage. Its breeding-range extends in the west to the islands 

 of Rodby (1901) and Klaegbanken in Denmark, while in the Baltic it bred in N.E. 

 Germany at the Drausensee (1899) and at Kossitten in 1902, and has recently 

 re-colonised Gotland; while in 1901 it bred in S. Upland and probably also in 

 Jemtland on the Swedish side. On the Russian side of the Baltic it nests in some 

 numbers at several localities in the Baltic provinces, and at Karlo in the Gulf of 

 Bothnia. Eastward there are large colonies on Lake Ladoga, a single colony near 

 Archangel, and others in the Moscow, Kazan, Ufa, and Perm governments. In 

 Asia it breeds from the Ob valley (64 N.) east to the Sea of Okhotsk. Its winter 

 range in Europe extends to the Mediterranean and the northern coasts of Africa, 

 from Marocco to Egypt, but in Southern Asia there is only a single record of its 

 occurrence in India, in January 1859, and it apparently migrates westward to the 

 Caspian and Black Seas. Stragglers have been recorded from the Faeroes, New 

 York State, Maine, Bermudas, and Mexico. [F. c. R. J.] 



3. Migration. A cold weather visitor from Eastern Europe, in irregular 

 numbers. It occurs mainly on the east coast of Great Britain, less frequently on 

 the south of England and the west of Scotland, and irregularly on the west of 

 England and on the Irish coasts. September and October are the months in 

 which it is most frequently recorded. Unusually large numbers visited the York- 



