1882.] FROM PERU AND CHILI. .525 



Nov. 1881. Eyes brown. No. 11, Payta, January 1882. Eyes 

 black.] 



This rather small Gull, with a dark slate-black hood in the nuptial 

 dress, is now well known as a winter visitant to the Pacific coast as 

 far south as Chili. Its breeding-grounds are in Manitoba and other 

 northern portions of America, chiefly to the west of 90° W. long., or 

 say, roughly, the prolongation of the line of the Mississippi. 



Larus serkanus, Tseh. 



Larus serranus,'^%c\\\xiS\, Wiegm. Arch. 18-14, pt. i. p. 314 ; Scl. 

 ftv'Jalv. P. Z. S. 1871, p. .t77; Saund. op. cit. 1878, p. ISti. 



[No. 10, Callao Bay, August 1881.] 



A fine adult of this much larger species, with the full black hood 

 of breeding- plumage. It is known to breed on the islands and 

 shores of the Andean lakes ; but its eggs and nestlings are, I believe, 

 still undescribed. During the bad weatlier in the mountains it conies 

 down to the Pacific coast; but as yet it has not been found on the 

 eastern slope, nor in the Argentine provinces, the bird thus named by 

 Burmeister being clearly L. maculipennis. 



Larus cirrhocephalus, Vieill. 



Larus cirrhocephalus, Vieillot, in 2nd ed. Nouv. Diet. Hist. Nat. 

 t. xxi. p. 502 (1818) ; Saunders, P. Z. S. 1878, p. 204. 



[No. 75 (d), no. 76 ( ? ), Payta, January 1882. Eyes bright 

 silvery grey ; legs and beak red.] 



Both these examples are adults, and even old birds, as evidenced 

 by the size of the subapical mirror in the first and second primaries. 

 But although the month of January corresponds to our midsummer, 

 nevertiieless these birds show only a little of the pale grey hood 

 characteristic of the nuptial season. In Argentine specimens the 

 hood is assumed from September onwards, and, following the usual 

 rule with Gulls of the southern hemisphere, the birds may be 

 expected to breed about November. Where this Gull breeds, how- 

 ever, is as yet a mystery, as is also the route by which it reaches the 

 Pacific coast. All that is known is that it occurs on the coast, bays, 

 and lakes of Brazil from about Rio de Janeiro down to Buenos Ayres, 

 and up the La Plata and the Parana ; but accounts of its breeding- 

 habits in those districts, such as those of Hudson (P. Z. S. 1870, 

 p. 802, and 18/1, p. 4), really apply to a totally different species, 

 namely L. maculijiennis, Licht. Without any connecting links in 

 the chain of distribution, L. cirrhocephalus makes its appearance on 

 the coast of Peru, these two examples making the third and fourth 

 known to me from there, its range on the Pacific side being from 

 the Chincha Islands, in about 13°, to Payta in 5° S. lat. 



In this connexion it is necessary to point out an error into which 

 my friend Mr. R. B. Sharpe has fallen, owing to the want of genuine 

 specimens of this Gull in the British Museum, a deficiency which I 

 have since supplied. In his Report on the birds collected by Dr. 

 Coppinger, of K.M.S. 'Alert' (P. Z. S. 1881, p. 16), Mr. Sharpe, 



