Birds. 2069 



And in this way the names stood in Selby, Gould, and all the works published at that 

 time. Subsequently Temminck, in his ' Second Supplement,' says that our bird is 

 not the true cinereus, which is a southern species, but the Puffinus major of Faber, 

 the two supposed British species being only different states of plumage of the same 

 bird. Having written to Mr. Doubleday on this subject, he tells me that he believes 

 Temminck to be right. It should be observed that both Mr. Gould and Mr. Yarrell 

 express doubts of the British examples being the true Puffinus cinereus : I cannot find 

 that between the specimens obtained by Mr. Strickland and those of the common Bri- 

 tish shearwater the slightest discrepancy in structure has yet been detected; the dis- 

 crepancies pointed out are those of colour and size, and are much less than occur in 

 the cognate genera of sea-fowl. — E. 2V.] 



Occurrence of the Little Gull (Larus minutus) at Belfast. — Mr. W. Thompson re- 

 cords in the third number of the ' Annals of Natural History ' the occurrence of two 

 specimens of the little gull, in the estuary at Belfast, in December, 1847 : one of them, 

 a beautiful adult specimen, was shot, and was preserved by Mr. Darragh,the curator 

 of the Belfast Museum ; the other escaped. — Edward Neiuman ; February 29, 1848. 



Occurrence of Bonaparte's Gull (Larus Bonaparti) at Belfast. — Tn the same num- 

 ber of the ' Annals of Natural History,' Mr. W. Thompson records the occurrence of 

 a specimen of this North-American bird on the river Lagan, about a mile above the 

 lowest bridge at Belfast, on the 1st of February last. It is described in the * Fauna 

 Boreali-Americana,' p. 425 : in this work it is stated to be common in all parts of the 

 fur countries, where it associates with the terns, and is distinguished by its shrill and 

 plaintive cry. Audubon observed it at Cincinnati, and shot one specimen at the mouth 

 of the Arkansas : afterwards he saw it in abundance in Chesapeake Bay in April, and 

 at Passamoudy in May. In the latter place it was so abundant that he killed seven- 

 teen with one discharge of a double-barrelled gun. Mr. Thompson's Irish specimen 

 is 13 inches 9 lines in length, and the tips of the wings pass the tail 1 inch 9 lines. 

 The beak is 1 inch 1 line in length measured from the forehead, 2\ lines in breadth 

 and 3^ lines in length ; it is black, and rather paler at the base beneath : legs and 

 feet pale flesh-colour. The bird weighed b\ ounces : its stomach contained the re- 

 mains of two specimens of opossum shrimp, a little vegetable matter, and some small 

 pebbles. Mr. Thompson has given the following detailed account of its plumage. 

 " Head white, excepting the usual blackish seasonal ear-spot of Xema; a little of this 

 colour before the lower portion of and beneath the eye, and a little above it posteriorly 

 — also blackish, mixed with white on the nape : thence to the back very pale pearl- 

 gray : back or mantle ( ' manteau,' Temm. ) pearl or pale bluish gray. Tail pure 

 white, except from about a line inwards from the tip, where a band of black, nearly 

 an inch in breadth, appears. The wings exhibit generally the bluish gray of matu- 

 rity, but have clove-brown markings on the bastard wing, lesser coverts and scapulars. 

 Anterior border of the wing while from its shoulder, for the breadth of four greater 

 primary coverts. Primaries exhibiting in degree considerably more black than the 

 specimen described in ' Faun. Bor.-Amer.' — outer margin of the first entirely black ; 

 of the second, from the tip upwards for 5£ inches, black, thence white ; of the third, from 

 the tip upwards, black for 4 inches next the shaft, for 3£ inches on outer margin. Re- 

 mainder of the primaries terminated with brownish black, except at the extreme tip. 

 On the third, the first indication of white appears in a mere line of that colour, thence 

 it becomes gradually larger in size and deeper in shade to the seventh, where it as- 

 sumes the pearl-gray of the lower portion of the same feather. The black becomes 

 VI Q 



