COMMON GULL. 573 



The Zoological Society have received specimens sent by 

 Keith Abbott, Esq. from Trebizond, and the "Russian 

 naturalists found it in the vicinity of the Caspian Sea. 



In the adult bird in summer the bill is greenish-grey 

 at the base, towards the point yellow ; irides dark brown, 

 edges of the eye- lids red ; the whole head and neck pure 

 white ; the back and all the wing-coverts pearl-grey, 

 secondaries and tertials the same, but broadly edged and 

 tipped with white ; primaries black on the outer web, 

 with a small portion of pearl-grey at the base of the inner 

 web, the proportion of grey increasing on each primary 

 in succession, the first and second primary with a patch 

 of white on both webs near the end, but the extreme 

 tips of both are black, the third, fourth, fifth and sixth, 

 have white tips, but the first set of primary quill-feathers 

 which the young bird carries for the first fifteen months, 

 have no white at the tips. Few birds moult their first 

 set of quill-feathers in their first autumn. Tail-coverts 

 and tail-feathers pure white ; chin, neck in front, breast, 

 and all the under surface of the body and tail pure white ; 

 legs and feet dark greenish-ash. The whole length of an 

 old male eighteen inches and a half; of the wing from 

 the point fourteen inches and a half. The length of an 

 old female about one inch less, and of the wing half an 

 inch less. 



In the winter the whole head and the sides of the 

 neck are streaked and spotted with dusky brown and 

 ash-brown. 



A young bird in its first autumn has the basal portion 

 of the bill yellowish-brown, the part anterior to the nostrils 

 nearly black ; irides dusky ; head, sides of the neck, the 

 ear-coverts and occiput dull white, mottled with greyish- 

 brown ; the back, wing-coverts, secondaries and tertials 



