64 AUDOUIN'S GULL. 



the Gulls 'con hello colour cli cor alio, ^ as I firmly believe from their 

 cry, their way of holding themselves, and the bright pink of their 

 bills. For the first three weeks of their life on board I had, of 

 course, every opportunity of comparing them with the young of the 

 Larus leucopheus, and on arriving in England, had the pleasure of 

 presenting them to the Zoological Society, in whose gardens I also 

 deposited two of our Herring Gulls from Vacca. 



"The general appearance of Larus Audouinii on the wing is 

 certainly more like that of L. leucopheus than that of any other 

 Gull with which I am acquainted, but the wings seem conspicuously 

 longer, and, of course, at a short distance the brilliant red bill is a 

 clear distinction. The cry is not so harsh, and is more prolonged 

 than that of the latter species. 



"I subjoin the measurements of a skin of one of my specimens, 

 a male, as taken by Mr. Salvin. Total length about twenty inches; 

 tarsus 2.45; bill from gape 3; wing from carpus to tip 15.75; tail 

 six inches." 



The above description refers to the isles of Toro and Vacca, off 

 the south-west point of Sardinia. 



Doderlein (op. cit.) writes: — "This beautiful species of Larus, dis- 

 covered by Payraudeau in the waters of Corsica, comes sometimes 

 on to the Sicilian coasts, according to Temminck and Benoit. When 

 I was at Palermo I had three beautiful specimens, one in youthful 

 dress, sent to me from Girgenti, from the estimable Caraso. The 

 other two, male and female adult, were taken on the 24th. of June, 

 1870, in the port of Palermo. This species, besides the different 

 characters spoken of by authors (such as its great red beak, with 

 two black bars towards the apex, its black feet, its azure ashy mantle, 

 its head and inferior parts pure white, its remiges black, with white 

 extremities^ is to be known besides by the remarkable length and 

 acuteness of the wings, which, in a state of repose, extend beyond 

 the tail three or four inches, which does not occur in any other of 

 our Gulls, including the well-known L. canus and L. ridibundus. 

 In the two examples at Palermo the head of the female is perfectly 

 white, while that of the male is lightly marked on the nape with 

 little longitudinal ash-coloured spots. It is useless to record that 

 this species is very abundant on the coasts of Sardinia, particularly 

 in the Straits of Bonifacio." 



Salvadori (op. cit.) writes of this species: — "Cara says it is met 

 with on the coast of Maddelena, from whence he had one individual. 

 There are none in the Museum of Cagliari, which induces me to 

 suppose it is very rare in Sardinia. Tristram obtained this species 



