LITTLE GULL. 475 



informs me that in 1854 two specimens came under his observation; 

 and in the same year I examined a fine adult specimen, in the 

 summer plumage, which had been shot by Mr William Paterson, 

 near North Berwick, in East Lothian. In 1852 the Little Gull 

 was procured at Orkney, and in the following year it occurred 

 in Shetland. 



This beautiful little gull appears to occur on the eastern side 

 of Britain occasionally in some numbers. I have been informed by 

 Mr J. H. Grurney, jun., that he procured no less than fourteen of 

 these birds from the Yorkshire coast at intervals between the 

 13th of July and the 21st November, 1868;* several of these 

 were in winter plumage, and one was in adult summer dress. Mr 

 Gurney further states that he heard of a few others that had 

 passed into private hands. A specimen in my own collection a 

 young male shot on the sands near Don Mouth, Aberdeenshire, 

 on 29th March, 1869, was presented to me by Mr Alexander 

 Mitchell of the museum in Castle Street, Aberdeen, who has 

 since informed me that he shot other two specimens, adult and 

 immature, at Aberdeen on the 28th September, 1870. I have 

 had the opportunity of seeing another a female which was 

 shot at Coldingham Harbour, Berwickshire, on December of the 

 same year. Mr Angus informs me that several were obtained on 

 the Aberdeenshire coast about the same time. It would appear, 

 indeed, that during its migratory journey southwards this species 

 keeps strictly by the east coast. 



Nothing appears to have been known of the nidification of the 

 Little Gull until 1869, in which year Mr H. E. Dresser exhibited 

 five eggs, with the bird itself in summer plumage, from Lake 

 Ladoga, in Eussia, at a meeting of the Zoological Society of 

 London, held on 25th November. These had been collected by 

 Mr A. Mewes, a well-known Swedish ornithologist. The eggs 

 resembled those of Sterna arctica, especially the dark varieties. 

 Out of twenty-five specimens Mr Dresser did not observe much 

 variation, and none of them had a light ground colour. 



* In the following year the species was met with in even greater numbers, 

 as many as thirty specimens having been procured off the Yorkshire coast in a 

 few weeks. 



