388 



e&closing the eye, excepting the front portion ; lower neck white ; mantle dark pearl or French grey ; 

 upper tail-coverts, tail, and underparts pure white ; first primary black on the outer web and at the tip, 

 otherwise white ; second white, but black at the tip and a little up the inner web ; the third and fourth 

 white with broad subterminal black bands and white tips, and pearl-grey on the inner webs ; the rest 

 up to the seventh grey with black subterminal bars, the seventh and eighth grey with a small dark 

 margin at the end of the inner web ; edge of the whig and under wing-coverts white : bill deep black ; 

 iris dark brown ; legs and feet orange-red. Total length about 13"5 inches, culmen 1*6, wing 10"3, 

 tail 4-0, tarsus 1-38. 



Adult Female (Hamilton, Ontario). Similar to the male. 



Adult in winter (Pennsylvania). Similar, but the head and neck white slightly marked with grey, and a 

 grey spot on the auricular region ; legs and feet flesh-colour. 



Young (Moose Factory, August 24th). Crown brownish grey ; a dark grey patch covering the auricular 

 region; upper parts generally marked with buffy brown, and on the wings withbuffy brown and darker 

 brown ; tail white, with a broad terminal black band and narrowly tipped with buffy white ; otherwise 

 like the adult in winter. 



Bonaparte's Gull is a Nearctic bird inhabiting North America from the northern portion of the 

 British possessions down as far south as Bermuda in the winter. It is but a rare straggler to 

 Europe, and has up to the present time been obtained only in the British Isles and on Heligoland. 

 I was for long doubtful as to whether it could properly be included in the European list, but 

 have since convinced myself that it has undoubtedly been obtained on several occasions. The 

 first record of its occurrence is that by Thompson (Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. 1848, p. 192, and 

 B. of Irel. iii. p. 317), who writes as follows: — "A specimen of this beautiful little gull, the 

 first known to have visited Europe, was killed at the tidal portion of the river Lagan, between 

 Ormeau Bridge and the Botanic Garden, about a mile above the lowest bridge at the town of 

 Belfast, on the 1st February 1848. It was flying singly. The person who shot the bird, attracted 

 by its pretty appearance merely, left it to be preserved with a taxidermist, who on receipt of any 

 birds either rare or unknown to him kindly brings them for my inspection." Another specimen, 

 obtained in April 1850, on Loch Lomond, by Sir George H. Leith-Buchanan (Zool. pp. 3117- 

 3118), was examined and identified by Mr. Howard Saunders (Yarr. Brit. B. ed. 4, vol. iii. p. 585), 

 who remarks that the other two recorded occurrences in Ireland, one on the 14th February, 1855, 

 about seventeen miles north of Dublin (Zool. p. 4762), and the second in Dublin Bay in July 

 1864 (Zool. s. s. p. 306), are less thoroughly authenticated; and I quite agree with him that it 

 is, to say the least of it, rather remarkable that this Gull should visit Ireland in the month of 

 July. The fourth recorded occurrence is that of one shot in Falmouth Harbour on the 

 4th January, 1865 (B. of Cornwall, p. 168), and a second example was shot on the 10th of the 

 same month near Penryn. A sixth specimen was identified by Mr. Cecil Smith while looking 

 through the collection of Mr. F. Persehouse, of Torquay ; and Mr. Persehouse informed him that 

 he shot it at St. Leonard's-on-Sea, Sussex, at the west end of the promenade, early in November 

 1870. It was with a number of Black-headed and Kittiwake Gulls, and he at first mistook it 

 for Larus minutus. 



