COMMON GULL. 617 



greenish-yellow. The colours of the soft parts, which fade 

 soon after death, were taken by the Editor from a fully adult 

 bird, shot in Norfolk on the 21st of August. In the winter 

 the whole head and the sides of the neck are streaked and 

 spotted with dusky-brown and ash-brown : and the legs and 

 feet are olivaceous. 



The whole length of an old male is eighteen inches and 

 a half; of the wing from the point, fourteen and a quarter 

 inches. The length of an old female is about one inch less, 

 and of the wing half an inch less. 



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 

 brownish-ash, the feathers edged with paler brown ; a few 

 bluish-grey feathers on the centre and sides of the back ; 

 the primaries dark brown, both as to the shafts and greater 

 part of the webs ; upper tail-coverts dull white ; tail-feathers 

 white, broadly barred with dark brown, except the outer 

 feather on each side, which has the outer web mainly 

 white ; chin and throat white ; neck in front, the breast, and 

 all the under surface of the body mottled with light ash- 

 brown, on a ground of white ; legs and feet pale yellowish- 

 brown, the claws black. With the following moult the band 

 on the tail gradually disappears, and the new outer primary 

 on each side shows a slight sub-apical white spot or 'mirror'; 

 with successive moults this mirror increases in size, and also 

 appears successively on the second and even on the third 

 primaries. 



The young in down is, like many other nestling Gulls, 

 of a greyish-buff spotted with black, but Saxby says that it 

 may be distinguished from the Lesser Black-backed Gull by 

 the presence of dark marks immediately above and below 

 the eye. 



VOL. in. 4 K 



