386 THE BIRDS OF DEVON. 



in their wiuter plumage (when the top of the head is white, and there is 

 only a small dark spot behind the ears) have been frequently met 

 with. 



Mr. T. Cornish received a Little Gull from St. Just, near Penzance, 

 February loth, ISSO, an adult, which weighed a little under 7 ounces, or 

 about as much as would be scaled by an extra fine Common 8nipe. Two 

 more were seen between Hayle and St. Ives, and one of them, an 

 immature bird, was shot on February 21st that same year (Zool. 1889, 

 pp. 107, 234). 



Mr. Mansel-Pleydcll enumerates eight Dorsetsliire specimens ; one of 

 them, shot March 22nd, 1802, was probably almost in full plumage. In 

 Somersetshire we have known the Little Gull to occur in the autumn in 

 the neighbourhood of Weston-super-Mare, aud one was shot at Clevedon 

 at the end of October 1888 (Zool. 1>^8U, p. 32). We have ourselves a 

 very pretty specimen of a young biid which was shot on the sands 

 at AVeston-super-Mare in a plumage closely resembling the " Tarrock " 

 stage of the Kittiwake. 



The summer home of this small species is to be found in South and 

 Central Kussia, the great lakes providing the nesting-stations. It is 

 especially numerous on Lake Ladoga, breeding on the small islands 

 in company with the Common Tern, its eggs verj- closely resembling 

 those of that bird in size, shape, and in the colour of the markings; 

 but, according to ilr. "W. Meves, they are to be easily distingiiisr ed 

 by the colour of the yelk, this being orange-red in the eggs of the Little 

 Gull, and ochre-yellow in those of the Common Tern. 



[Bonaparte's GrUll. Lams ijhiladelphia (Orel). 



Three examples of this small Black-headed Gull, a common and beauti- 

 ful >>orth- American species of about the same size as Sabine's Gull, have 

 now occurred in Cornwall : the first in Falmouth Harbour, January 4th, 

 18'>o ; the second on the 10th January in the same year, near Penryn; 

 and the third at Xewlyn, near Penzance, (Jctober 24th, 1800 (Zool. 

 1801, p. 35). One of these Gulls has also been obtained near Belfast; 

 another, a fine adult, in Scotland ; and another at St. Leonards, in 

 Sussex. Among the birds enumerated by Herr Giitke as having occurred 

 in Heligoland is a single examx^le of Bonaparte's Gull, shot in the winter 

 of 1845. Xo other European specimens appear to have been recorded. 



The three Cornish Bonaparte's Gulls were all in immature plumage, 

 which closely corresponds with that stage of dress in aU the other Black- 

 headed Gulls. That obtained in Falmouth Harbour was examined and 

 fully described by Dr. Bullmore, who gives its length as 14 inches (the 

 length of the Little Gull is only 10 inches), and its weight as 7 ounces, 

 and states that it exactly resembled the figure of the immature bird given 

 in Yarrell. 



This species is very abundant throughout Xorth America and the 

 United States in the autumn and winter, and goes very far north in the 



