Order LAEIFOEMES.] 



[Family LAELDiE. 



LAIIUS BULLERI. 



(BULLEE'S GULL.) 





Larus bulleri, Hutton ; Buller, Birds of New Zealand, yoI. ii., p. 58. 



I look upon this Gull as one of our rarest species, because it is met with only in certain widely 

 separated localities. The late Mr. W. T. L. Travers obtained specimens many years ago in Lake 

 Guyon, in the provincial district of Nelson, and nearly all the examples in my collection came from 

 inland waters near Timaru. There is hardly a specimen in any of the Colonial museums, and, so 

 far as I am aware, the Tring Museum is the only one in England possessing anything like 

 a series of them. 



It is said to be numerous in the estuary of Westport, but I am not sure that the species has 

 been correctly identified. There is a Gull with a brown bill (distinct from Larus scopulinus), with 

 which it may have been confounded ; for I have received a Gull from Otago — coming nearer to 

 Larus bulleri (Hutton) than any of the others — -which appears to be a distinct species. It has the 

 same narrow bill as Larus bulleri, but instead of being entirely black, as in ordinary specimens, the 

 mandibles are reddish-brown at the base, with black tips, which may be due to the season of the 

 year in which the bird was killed. The legs, however, which are blackish-brown in Larus bulleri 

 all the year round, appear, as far as one can judge from the dried specimen, to have been pale 

 or pinky-red. It seems to be an adult bird, notwithstanding the sub-terminal patches of black on 

 the outer webs of the secondaries, and I therefore examined with interest the markings on the 

 primaries, which are now recognised as being the safest criterion for separating these closely-allied 

 forms. These I found to be very different from those in the other species of the group. The first 

 primary has a long oar-shaped mark of white extending almost its entire length, and spreading out 

 again at the base ; the second primary has a smaller and more spatulate mark of white ; the third 

 primary has an irregular longitudinal bar of white occupying both sides of the shaft and extending 

 to within 2 inches of the tip ; in the succeeding quills the same character is continued, but the 

 white mark assumes a more symmetrical and rounded appearance. 



Mr. Alan Jackson's collection of eggs, in Dunedin, contains an egg of Larus bulleri. It 

 is ovoido-elliptical ; greenish-grey, covered more or less with blackish-brown markings, more 

 thickly at the larger end, where they assume fantastic shapes, presenting a fanciful resemblance 

 to certain well-known Arabic characters — a very beautiful cabinet specimen. 



The egg is usually broadly oval ; generally greyish white, widely frecked with purplish brown, 

 the markings at the larger end assuming the form of a zone. 



Mr. Townson informs me that Larus bulleri is comparatively abundant in the estuary of the 

 Buller. My last six specimens of this beautiful Gull were obtained in a backwater about 100 miles 

 from the coast, in the South Island, where they have a breeding ground. For obvious reasons, I 

 do not care to disclose the exact locality. 



Mr. Howard Saunders says of this Gull, in the ' Catalogue of Birds ' (vol. xxv., p. 234) : 

 " This species appears to be largely insectivorous. Its wing-pattern and the tail-feathers 

 are peculiar, and it seems to have no very close allies." 



The late Mr. T. H. Potts, a great lover of birds and a good observer, gave, in the ' Zoologist ' 

 for 1885, the following interesting account of a breeding-place of this species on the narrow 

 pebbly shore of Lake Camp, which lies under the Harper Bange, in the Upper Ashburton district : 



