GREAT BLACK- HEADED GULL. 53 



crown of head ashy-whitish, washed and mottled with brown ; 

 behind the eye a dusky patch ; sides of face ashy- brown ; under 

 surface of body pure white, with a band of mottled brown spots 

 across the fore-neck and on the sides of the upper breast ; under 

 wing-coverts white, mottled with blackish along the edge of the 

 wings ; primaries ashy-blackish below. 



Characters. The large size of this Black-headed Gull renders 

 it easily distinguishable from all the other hooded species, none 

 of which have a wing exceeding fifteen inches. 



Range in Great Britain. This large species has once been 

 obtained in England, an example in full summer plumage 

 having been shot off Exmouth at the end of May or beginning 

 of June, 1859. 



Range outside the British Islands. The Great Black-headed 

 Gull breeds in the districts of the Lower Volga and on the 

 lakes of Central Asia, as far east as Koko-N or, and it probably 

 inhabits the whole of Thibet in summer. It visits the eastern 

 Mediterranean region in winter, and is found along the Red 

 Sea and in Egypt down to Nubia, while at the same season it 

 visits the shores of the Persian Gulf, and the Indian Ocean as 

 far as Ceylon and Burma. 



Habits. Scarcely anything has been recorded of the habits 

 of the present species. Prjevalsky states that it is a very 

 quarrelsome bird, and that its cry is harsh and like the croak 

 of a raven. Its food consists of fish, Crustacea, reptiles, 

 locusts, &c. 



Nest. Apparently none, the eggs being laid upon the bare 

 sand. 



Eggs. Three in number, and very large. The general 

 colour is clay-brown or olive stone-colour, spotted with black 

 or brown, with very distinct spots or blotches of inky-grey. In 

 some eggs the spots are small, so that the egg looks like a 

 gigantic edition of that of the Gull-billed Tern, but in others, 

 particularly those with the olive-tinted ground-colour, there are 

 some very large blotches of black, principally at the larger end. 

 Axis, 2 '95-3 '3 inches; diam. 2-05-2 2. 



