] 20 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



fields of Ramsey and Little Oakley for more thau a week, and escaped the 

 many attempts made to shoot it. A large flight of Shore Larks arrived on 

 this part of the coast, and frequented the salt marshes. No less than thirty- 

 five were shot. A single specimen of the Waxwing was seen on the 13th 

 December in a garden at Dovercourt. — F. Kerry (Harwich). 



Bonaparte's Gull at St. Leonards-on-Sea.— About the mouth of July, 

 1876, I was looking through an interesting collection of birds belonging to 

 Mr. F. Pershouse, of Torquay. Amougst other specimens I particularly 

 noticed a small Gull, which I could not then identify. However, I luckily 

 took some notes of it. A month or two ago I got an American skin of 

 Bonaparte's Gull, Larus Philadelphia, from Mr. Marsden, the dealer, at 

 Gloucester. This skin at once put me in mind of Mr. Pershouse 's. bird, 

 and on referring to my notes of that specimen I found they agreed very 

 closely with the skin which I had received. As Mr. Pershouse was lately 

 making some alterations in Lis cases, he very kindly took the bird out and 

 sent it up to me for identification, and on comparing it with the skin above 

 mentioned and with another which Mr. Howard Saunders had kindly sent 

 me, I found it to be without doubt Larua Philadelphia, in immature 

 plumage, and in the same state of plumage as the centre bird in Yarrell's 

 figure. Nor can there be any doubt about its being a British-killed speci- 

 men, for Mr. Pershouse shot it himself. The following is his account of its 

 capture: — " It is some years since I shot it, and I cannot supply the exact 

 date, but it was early in November, 1870, at St. Leonards-ou-Sea, at the 

 western extremity of the parade. It was with a number of Black-headed 

 and Kittiwake Gulls. I mistook it at the time for Larus minutus, and 

 remained under that impression until your visit." It is a young bird, with 

 some of the dark markings on the wing which probably led to its being 

 mistaken for an immature Little Gull. For an adult Little Gull, with its 

 white primaries, it could never have been mistaken. It is by no means a 

 common Gull in the British Islands. Mr. Hurting, in his ' Handbook,' 

 enumerates only six British specimens; and Mr. Bodd, in his 'Birds of 

 Cornwall,' mentions one other Cornish specimen besides the one referred 

 to in the ' Handbook,' but beyond these I have not been able to find another 

 recorded instance of a British-killed example. Mr. Pershouse's specimen, 

 therefore, is only the eighth reported. It may be well, perhaps, to point 

 out some of the distinctions between Bonaparte's Gull and the immature of 

 Larus ridibwidus and Larus minutus. It is intermediate in size between 

 the two, but the markings of the primary quills will serve better to dis- 

 tinguish it than comparative size aud measurements, however accurately 

 taken, as most gulls vary a little in size. Bonaparte's Gull has the shaft 

 of the first primary black, or nearly black, except a small portion towards 

 the tip where the white on the inner web runs up to the shaft. This may 

 vary a little, as the skin sent to me by Mr. Saunders seems a very light 



