LITTLE GULL. 301 



LARUS MINUTUS. 



LITTLE GULL. 



(PLATE 54.) 



Larus minutus, Pall. Reise Rms. Reichs, iii. p. 702 (1776) ; et auctorum pluri- 



morum Gmelin, Naumann, Temmmck, Dresser, Sounders, &c. 

 Larus atricilloides, Falk, Ritss. Reis. iii. p. 355, pi. 24 (1785). 

 Xema minutus, Boie, Isis, 1822, p. 503. 



Hydrocolceus minutus (Pall.), Kaup, Natiirl. Syst. p. 113 (1829). 

 Larus nigrotis, Less. Traite d'Orn. p. 619 (1831). 

 Chroicocephalus miriutus (Pall.), Eyton, Cat. Brit. B. p. 54 (1836). 

 Gavia minuta (Pall.), Macgill, Hist. Brit. B. v. p. 613 (1852). 



The Little Gull is one of several species of birds which were unknown to 

 Linnaeus and Brisson, but which were discovered by Pallas shortly after 

 the publication of the great works of those distinguished naturalists. It 

 is also one of several species which were first recorded as occurring in the 

 British Islands by Colonel Montagu, who included it in the Appendix to 

 the Supplement of his ' Ornithological Dictionary/ published in 1813. 

 The example which Montagu identified with Pallas' s species was an imma- 

 ture bird shot on the Thames near Chelsea. Since then the Little Gull 

 has been found to be a somewhat irregular visitor to our shores on 

 migration and in winter. It has occurred in various parts of England, 

 Scotland, and Ireland, as far north as the Shetland Isles. It generally 

 appears in small flocks, and has been most frequently observed on the east 

 coast of England. In 1868 fourteen examples were procured on the 

 Yorkshire coast (Gurney, ' Zoologist/ 1868, pp. 1379, 1424, 1462, 1482) 

 from the 12th of July to the 21st of November; and in the following 

 winter about thirty examples were shot on the Yorkshire coast, about 

 sixty on the Norfolk coast, and others in various localities, the greater 

 number having been procured in February 1870, a month which was re- 

 markable for violent gales from the north-east (Stevenson, Trans. Norf. and 

 Norvv. Nat. Soc. 1871, p. 66). 



The geographical distribution of the Little Gull is specially interesting, 

 because this bird is one of the very few species whose summer range 

 extends to North-east Siberia, but whose winter range is confined to 

 South-west Asia, South Europe, and Africa. The breeding-range of the 

 Little Gull extends from the lakes of Ladoga and Onega, through Southern 

 Siberia, to the Stanavoi mountains and the southern shores of the Sea of 

 Ochotsk. It passes through Turkestan on migration, and winters in the 



