162 Mr. H. Seebohni on the Ornithology of Siberia. 



several occasions I saw large Gulls without the black tips to 

 the wing-feathers, which were doubtless L. glaucus. 



LARUS AFFINIS, Reinhardt. 



This yellow-legged Herring-Gull, with a mantle nearly as 

 dark as that of L.fuscus, was first seen on the 31st of May. 

 During the breaking up of the ice the wild cries of these birds 

 were an appropriate accompaniment to the grand crash which 

 shipwrecked us in the Koo-ray'-i-ka. As the ice broke up 

 further north these Gulls left us ; and we saw them no more 

 until we reached lat. 69. Here a large colony frequented an 

 island in the river where several parties of Russians and Ost'- 

 yaks were fishing. This colony was almost entirely composed 

 of birds in immature plumage ; and there was nothing to lead 

 us to suppose that any of them were breeding. Between 

 lat. 70i and 71J we passed several breeding-stations of these 

 birds, where it was a very rare thing to see a Gull in imma- 

 ture plumage. I should have been too late to secure fresh 

 eggs of this species; but, fortunately, I had chartered a Russian 

 at Brek'-oif-sky and a Samoyede at Gol-cheek'-a to collect 

 for me, and at each station I found a large basket of unblown 

 eggs. As might have been expected, they vary somewhat in 

 size and colour, and are not distinguishable from eggs of L. 

 fuscus or L. argentatus. So far as it is possible to compare 

 the cries of birds from memory, I may confidently affirm 

 that these do not vary from those of L. argentatus or L. 

 cachinnans. 



When I was in St. Petersburg Russow was kind enough 

 to unpack for me the whole of the splended series of Gulls in 

 the Museum, which gave me an opportunity of obtaining some 

 valuable information as to the geographical distribution of 

 these closely allied species. Larus affinis appears to breed in 

 the extreme north of Europe and Asia from the White Sea 

 to Kamchatka. It has been obtained in the breeding-season 

 on Bear Island, south of Solovetsk, in the White Sea (Midd., 

 in Mus Petr.), on the Petchora (Seebohm fyHarvie Brown), on 

 the Ob (Finsch fy Brehm), on the Yen-e-say 7 , on the Boganida 

 and Taimyr, near the North-east Cape (Midd., in Mus. Petr.), 



