BLACK-HEADED GULL. 



315 



dress which, begins to be assumed almost as soon as the first plumage is 

 complete) show additional signs of immaturity in having the scapulars and 

 innermost secondaries brown with pale edges, the colours of the bill and 

 feet are much duller, and the head is white suffused with brown. Young 

 in first plumage have the feathers on the mantle also brown with pale 

 edges ; the crown, nape, and ear-coverts are brown, the subterminal broad 

 brown bar of the tail is very distinct, and the bill, feet, and orbits are 

 flesh-coloured. Young in down are buffish brown, paler on the underparts, 

 and spotted on the upper parts with blackish brown. 



Three other Black -headed Gulls have been included in the British list. 

 Saunders has conclusively shown (Yarr. ( Hist. Brit. B.' ed. 4, iii. p. 606) 

 that the story of an example of the Laughing Gull (Larus atricilla], an 

 American species, having been shot near Winchelsea in August 1774, and 

 having formed part of the collection of Col. Montagu, and being now in the 

 British Museum, is a fable. The bird described by Montagu was an im- 

 mature example, probably of the Black-headed Gull, certainly not of the 

 Laughing Gull ; whilst the bird in the British Museum is a nearly adult 

 example of the later species, and therefore could not possibly be the 

 specimen described by him. The committee of the ' Ibis List/ with their 

 accustomed carelessness, took no pains to correct such an obvious blunder. 

 The egg is figured on Plate 52. 



The only evidence for the admission into the British list of the Adriatic 

 Black-headed Gull (Larus melanocephalus) is that of an example purchased 

 for the British Museum from Mr. Whitely of Woolwich, who stated that 

 it was shot, in January 1866, near Barking Creek. An accidental change 

 of label, either at the British Museum or on Mr. Whitely's part, is the 

 probable explanation. The egg is figured on Plate 53. 



It seems probable that a single example of the Great Black-headed Gull 

 (Larus ichthyaetus) was shot in the spring of 1859 in the estuary of the 

 Exe in Devonshire (Ross, ' Zoologist/ 1860, p. 6860). The specimen is an 

 adult in full breeding-plumage, and is now in the Exeter Museum. It is 

 an eastern species, breeding from the basin of the Caspian eastwards to 

 Mongolia, wintering from the valley of the Nile to Assam. It has not 

 occurred on the island of Heligoland. Its egg is figured on Plate 53. 



