136 THE GULLS 



THE BLACKHEADED-GULL 

 [F. B. KIRKMAN] 



With the exception of the kittiwake, and three rare species that 

 have been recorded as visiting our shores half a dozen times or less, 

 the British gulls all belong to the genus Larus. It contains both the 

 largest, the glaucous and great blackbacked, and the smallest, the 

 little-gull. Between these, the better known species arrange them- 

 selves, according to a descending scale of size, as follows : the herring, 

 Iceland, lesser blackbacked, common, and, finally, the blackheaded, 

 the most widely known of all, and the subject of the present 

 chapter. 



Strictly speaking, the name of the species should be "brown- 

 headed," for brown is the colour of its hood. The misnomer, no 

 doubt, owes its origin to the fact that, seen at a distance, the hood 

 has the appearance of being black. Less excusable is the scientific 

 name ridibundus, bestowed upon the species by Linnaeus. I have 

 never heard anything in the notes it utters to justify the appellation, 

 which might far more appropriately have been applied to some of 

 the larger gulls, the lesser blackbacked, for instance, whose loud 

 emphatic ha! ha! ha ! could not be described otherwise than as a 

 laugh. Custom, in this case, is likely to prove stronger than fact, 

 and I have no doubt that ridibundus and "blackheaded" the species 

 ' 11 remain. 



The brown hood is assumed for the breeding season only ; 

 from about June to the end of January or early in February the head 

 is white, except for a brown patch or two. 1 It has been stated that 

 the change from the white to the brown is effected by the entrance 



1 Several lose the brown hood as early as the middle of June (F. Heatherley, in litt.). 



