Breeding-grounds of the Rosy Gull. 665 



oclireous in the younger specimen, -which has the flanks and 

 abdomen similarly tinged. But the oldest bird has the flanks 

 nearly and the abdomen quite without this tinge, and the 

 latter of a somewhat alabaster-roseate hue. The preapical 

 parts of the feathers of the chest and upper breast are 

 somewhat vermiculated with dark greyish brown, these 

 vermieulations being most pronounced in the youngest and 

 scarcely perceptible in the oldest specimen. The lining of 

 the wings is white, edged with brownish. 



The upper-parts are dark brown barred with ochreous on the 

 ends of the feathers. These ends are one millim. wide on the 

 crown or neck, while they are nearly confluent on the longer 

 scapulars in the younger bird ; in other specimens they are 

 narrower from abrasion. Forehead greyish brown, a long 

 but not well-defined whitish superciliary stripe, a greyish 

 brown spot in front of and below the eye, covering also the 

 ears. On the hind part of the neck of older specimens is 

 a scarcely perceptible narrow whitish collar and some white 

 feathers with ochreous ends (and some of them with a dark 

 preapical part) between the shorter scapulars. The lower back 

 and rump differ from the rest of the upper-parts in the 

 extreme narrowness of the ochreous ends of the feathers and, 

 on the rump, in the white on the bases of them being much 

 more developed, the well-marked visible and dark brown parts 

 of the feathers being reduced to a narrow subapical bar. 

 These bars are narrower in older specimens. The brown 

 of the upper-parts is more blackish, and the ochreous bars 

 are less whitish, than in the young of Xema sabinii. 



Lesser wing-coverts of the foremost and inner half of the 

 wing white, with narrow ochreous tips ; secondaries with 

 their larger coverts white (these coverts slightly tinged with 

 ochreous in younger specimens) . All the primary-coverts 

 (including the lesser) are blackish-brown, the primaries are 

 white with blackish-brown ends and are tinged with dark 

 blackish-grey near the shaft of the basal half of the feather ; 

 these dark colours being more and more developed on the 

 outer primaries and on their outer webs, so that the three 

 outer primaries are practically blackish-brown with the 



si u. VIII. — vol. vi. 2 x 



