66 British Birds, with their Nests and Eggs. 



the "quills very broadly edged with, white, and darkening to smoke colour towards 

 the margins of their inner webs ; under sides of the quills nearly black, except at 

 the tips ; under wing-coverts dark smoke-grey " (Saunders) ; bill dark red ; legs 

 and feet bright scarlet. Length 7! inches; wing 9; tail 3!; tarsus if; middle 

 toe with its claw ii. 



One of the largest breeding places of this Gull is near Lake Ladoga, in Russia, 

 where, frequently in association with the Common Tern, they nest in consider- 

 able colonies in marshes, where there are many floating islands. The vegetation, 

 partly decayed and partly still growing, forms excellent sites for the nests, which 

 are often placed close together. The nests are composed, as well as lined, with 

 dead vegetable fibres, and therein the bird deposits from two to four olive-brown 

 or greyish-brown eggs, with chocolate or blackish-brown spots or blotches, varying 

 in size from ii to if inches in length by if to i# in diameter. These eggs are so 

 like those of the Common Tern, with which they nest in the same colony, as to be 

 " absolutely indistinguishable " from them ; so that the only way to be quite 

 certain that one has collected the eggs of the Little Gull is to take them from 

 beneath the bird, or from a nest off which it has been seen to rise, and this may 

 be more easily done with the present species than most others, for it is far less 

 timid than the majority of Gulls. 



The eggs (which are incubated by both parents) are laid in June, and 

 before the end of July they are mostly all hatched out. The young emerge covered 

 with dark yellowish down, spotted above with dark brown. By the third week in 

 August — the young being all on the wing — the whole colony will have started on 

 its southern migratory journey. 



The plumage of this Gull undergoes nearly the same phases as the other 

 species which assume a hood during the breeding season. In the full-fledged bird 

 the head and back are dark brown, with white tips ; later on as the bird grows 

 older, the forehead, part of the cheeks, the throat, a line over the eye, the under 

 side of the wings, the rump, the under surface (except for some brownish feathers 

 on the breast) are seen to be white ; the rest of the head is brown (the hind head 

 and ear-coverts darker) ; the bill is blackish ; the legs orange-red ; the back and 

 wings blackish, the coverts of the latter tipped with white or greyish-white; the 

 primaries very dark brown, tipped with white ; the tail white, but having a broad 

 terminal band of black. The blackish feathers on the back gradually give place 

 to grey and lavender grey ; the tail band becomes less and less on the feathers 

 from out inwards, and from the tip downwards ; then partly by moult, partly by 

 pigment changes in the feathers, the wings lose (much more gradually) their dark 

 brown and become grey ; the under side of the primaries change to greyish-black 



