Contributions to the Ornithology of India, 8fc. 279 



portion next the shaft and the margin smoke coloured. How- 

 ever the rule may in most cases hold good and may be useful. 



There is another gull very likely to occur in India, I mean 

 L. atricilla, Linn. ; this is somewhat larger than hnmneicepha- 

 liis, has the whole of the primaries, even in the perfect adult, 

 entirely black, or at most only slightly tipped with white, the grey 

 of the upper surface much darker than in ridibitndus or melano- 

 cephalas, and in the breeding season the hood also much darker. 

 This is another species for which ornithologists on the eastern 

 sea coasts should look out. It is common on the western coast 

 of America as far north at any rate as California, and is very 

 likely to occur as a straggler on our south-eastern coast. 



981 ter. — Larus Hemprichii, Bonaparte. — L. Cras- 



sirostris, Licht. nee. Vieillot. 



The sooty gull is very abundant about the Kurrachee Harbour 

 and all the way up the Mekran Coast and at Muscat, and both 

 this aud Z. leucopthalmos , Licht. is, as every one going back- 

 wards and forwards to England must have noticed, common 

 at Aden and all the way up the Red Sea. Jesse, I see, obtained 

 it in Abyssinia, and Finsch gives a very good figure of it in the 

 Trans. Zoo. Soc, Vol. VII, p. 4, May 1870. 



In the Kurrachee Harbour it is like most of the water birds 

 except Larus occidentalis, Lamhruschini and Thalasseus cantiacus, 

 somewhat wary, but at Gwader and Muscat, it is excessively 

 tame and a constant attendant on all the fishermen^'s canoes, 

 who have only to wave their arms round their head as if 

 throwing out oft'al of fish, and to call ailow, ailow, to gather 

 a dozen of them round the boat in a few minutes. In this way, 

 while I procured only three or four specimens at Kurrachee, 

 and that with some little trouble, at Muscat and Gwader, I 

 obtained at once as many as I required. None of the other gulls 

 are so tame as these are, and none of them apparently can be 

 thus called. The following are dimensions taken in the 

 flesh : 



Males, length, 18-75 to 19-25 ; expanse, 46 to 48-5 ; wing, 

 14 to 14'5 ; tail from vent, 4-75 to 5-6 j wings, when closed, 

 reach to from 1-85 to 2*4 beyond end of tail ; bill at front, 

 1-98 to 2*1; from gape, 2-4 to 2*6; tarsus, 2 to 2-2 ; mid toe 

 and claw, 1*85 to 1-95 ; weight, 14 oz. to lib. 2 oz. Eemale (only 

 one measured) length, 19-2; expanse, 46 j tail from vent, 5 ; 

 wing, 13; wings, when closed, reached 2 beyond end of tail; 

 bill at front, 2; from gape, 2-6; tarsus, 2-17 ; mid toe and 

 claw, 1-9; weight, 13 oz. 



Bill, pale green, with a black bar near the tip, beyond which 



