The Mediterranean Black-Headed Gull. 73 



of whom these sea-birds were anything but familiar, and in many cases quite 

 unknown." 



The Black-beaded Gull in summer feeds on insects, and especially moths, 

 which it hawks on the wing. But it will pretty well eat anything, newly 

 sown oats, flesh, fish, Crustacea, and especially grubs and worms, which they 

 follow the plough or the harrow in spring, often as many as a hundred 

 in a flock, frequently in company with Rooks, to pick up as these are turned out 

 by the husbandman's operations. On such occasions they exhibit very little fear, 

 and will follow close on the ploughman's heels. 



The Black-headed Gull can be distinguished in winter while on the wing — 

 where Gulls are very difficult to determine — by its red legs, its mottled shoulders, 

 the dark spot on the side of its head, and the broad bar across the extremity of 

 its square tail. It can be distinguished also from the Little Gull— which it 

 resembles — by its larger size and greater length. The darker bill of the Little 

 Gull and the darker under side to its wings serve also as differentiation characters. 



Family— L ARID >s£. Subfamily— LA RINsE. 



Mediterranean Black-Headed Gull. 



Larus melanocephalus, NATTERER. 



THE Mediterranean Black-headed Gull has a place in the British list from 

 the fact that an adult example, in winter plumage, was shot on Breydon 

 Broad, in December, 1886. The British Museum had previously purchased a 

 specimen said to have been shot, in January 1866, in Barking Creek, on the Thames. 

 Its habitat is the shores of both sides of the Mediterranean, the Black Sea, and 

 the Atlantic shores of South- Western Europe, very rarely higher than 45" N. 

 latitude. 



