366 The Zoologist— September, 1866. 



some of its commonest sounds before, I shall not write it again, only 

 adding that I think " ridibundus" equally a misnomer as " blackhead." 

 "Scolding" would be move appropriate than "laughing," considering 

 it the only British gull that does not "laugh," and whose notes sound 

 always pettish and irritable. 



Nidijication. — The nest is built in a tuft of rushes standing isolated 

 in the water, among the herbage at the bank and on the ground. It 

 is composed of witliered substances, those collected in the vicinity, 

 and flat. The eggs range to four; I have seen five, and Thompson 

 mentions six. Very various in size, colour and nuirkings. The 

 ground colour is pale brown, dark brown or green-brown; spotted or 

 blotched or streaked with brown, black, gray and purple. It is folly 

 to think to discern the a-llied species of this family by the size of the 

 egg, as they are often several degrees smaller than the type. I have 

 seen eggs called masked gulls' that I could procure a basketfull of any 

 year, they being to my eye, and perhaps it is rather critical, only small 

 blackheaded gulls'. I never met with tliis gull breeding anywhere but 

 by fiosii water. There are so many capital accounts of breeding-stations 

 of this bird already in print that I will not trouble to describe one, but 

 refer again to the Belfast naturalist, and no ornitliologist should be 

 without Thompson's ' Natural History of Ireland.' Nidificalion begins 

 in May ; the young are out from the end of that month throughout 

 June. On account of the robbery of eggs, we suffer a little annoy- 

 ance in tracing the plumages of the gulls, moults being some- 

 times a month or six weeks late on this account, and examples 

 rather dwindled, In my descriptions of plumage I shall therefore 

 always use the early biid, so that readers must not accuse me of 

 ignorance if I state the moults a little earlier or perhaps later than 

 their experience. 



Plumages. — No. 1. Yoiwg in Down. Down long, very soft ; wood- 

 brown or pale brown above, spotted black; pale beneath, the sides 

 spotted dusky ; on the throat a dark patch ; under eyes a while patch. 

 Bill and feet olive. 



No. 2. Link 1. Mixture of down and first plumage. 



No. 3. First Plumaije or First Summer.— Ju]y. Upper surface: — 

 Head, top of head and nape from gape under the eyes to the ear-spot 

 brown, clearly indicating the future hood; the forehead and a circle 

 round the eyes whitish. The neck is white, except at its junction with 

 the body, where it is banded by a deep band of dull brown, with fainter 

 edges, not encroaching on the breast, but running down and forming 



