376 LARID^, 



snowy whiteness and fine black of tlieir plumage, have a beauti- 

 ful appearance with the dark foliage of the river-banks as a back- 

 ground ; but sometimes both are seen in company. On one occa- 

 sion, I observed an adult bird fishing as high up the Lagan as 

 the fk'st fall from the sea, while soon afterwards two immature 

 birds flew up the course of the river until they joined him. They 

 were no doubt the bearers of some particular intelligence, as im- 

 mediately on their reaching the old bird, he wheeled about, and 

 the three proceeded with their utmost speed down the river."*^ 

 The first week in May is the latest time I have noted adult birds 

 here, but the immature appear occasionally throughout that month 

 and June. 



On the 7th of July, 1835, I observed an adult pair of these 

 gulls on the lake of Windermere, and on the 16th, saw one at 

 the bridge in the town of Lancaster. 



Li the middle of May 1841, I noted L.fuscus as seen at the 

 Dardanelles, and some days after, numbers as congregated toge- 

 ther on the shore of the Bosphorus. These were set down as 

 L.fuscus, without a mark of doubt, but I now feel uncertain 

 respecting their species, as it is stated in my journal that a gull, 

 the size of L. canns, and the colour of L.fuscus, is common at 

 Constantinople, and so tame, that it will hardly go out of the 

 way of the boatmen's oars. They so habitually alighted on the 

 house-tops, that I thought probably they had nests there. This 

 is doubtless the gull alluded to, but not named, in the following 

 extract from the fourth part (1840) of Temminck's 'Manuel,' &c., 

 p. 472 : — " On trouve sur les cotes de Barbaric et en Syrie, peut- 

 etre aussi en Egypte, une mouette d'un quart moins grande que 

 Jiavipes \Ii.f'ii,scus'\, et a bee de beaucoup moins fort relative- 

 ment a la taille ; mais colore exactement comme Larus jiavipes." 

 Deglaud's ' Ornithologie Europeenne,' published in 1849, does 

 not contain any information on this species. 



* lu like manner, I once observed several of the black-lieaded gulls feeding in a 

 ploughed field half a mile from the shore of the bay, whence a single bird flew direct 

 to them ; the moment it arrived they all wheeled about, and with theirbest speed 

 made for the bay, where it was low water at the time ; they were not in any way 

 alarmed in the field ; the courier seemed to convey some sjiecial news. 



