BLACK-HEADED GULL. 601 



The Black-Headed Gull nests in one locality in the 

 Faeroes, which appear to be the limit of its range to the 

 north-west ; it also breeds sparingly in Southern Norway and 

 Sweden ; and in Eussia it goes as far north as Archangel, 

 becoming very abundant to the southwards. It is of general 

 distribution on the waters, marshes, and coasts of the rest 

 of Europe down to the Mediterranean, the most southern 

 breeding-place known being in the island of Sardinia ; it 

 frequents the coast of North Africa in winter, and it is not 

 improbable that some breed in Lower Egypt. It goes up 

 the Nile to Nubia ; occurs in the Red Sea ; and, following 

 the line of the Euphrates valley, it ranges from Palestine 

 to the coasts of India. Nowhere is it more abundant than 

 on the lakes and marshes of Central Asia from the Caspian 

 to the Sea of Okhotsk and Kamtschatka ; and in the waters 

 of Japan. On migration it visits the lower portions of the 

 Pamir, and passes by Gilgit, probably on its way to and from 

 India ; but on the elevated mountain lakes of the great Asian 

 plateau, from the Kara-kul to Mongolia, it is replaced as a 

 breeding-species by its somewhat larger and more robust 

 congener, Larus brunneicephalus, which has a hood of a 

 lighter brown, and a different wing-pattern, and which also 

 visits the coasts of India in the cold season. Our Black- 

 headed Gull nests, however, in the Ussuri valley and on the 

 Hanka Lake, visiting the coasts of China in winter ; and 

 Colonel H. H. Godwin-Austen obtained a specimen about 

 500 miles up the Brahmapootra ; but it has not yet been 

 recorded from Ceylon, or more southern localities. In South 

 America there are two brown-headed species of about the 

 same size, but with a very different wing-pattern : L. maculi- 

 pennis of the Eio de la Plata and Patagonia, and L. glaucodes 

 of Chili. 



As already stated, the Black-headed Gull nests in marshy 

 places, commencing to lay in the latter half of April if the 

 weather is mild, or early in May; the eggs are normally 

 three in number, and when four or more are found in the 

 same nest they are probably the produce of different females. 

 The ordinary colour is a yellowish or greenish olive-brown, 



VOL. III. 4 H 



