Birds. 5679 



which was brought to England. Two gulls shot in mid-winter I did 

 not preserve, but noted descriptions, which correspond with the 

 common gull (Lams canus), of which 1 have since seen a specimen in 

 England said to have come from the Crimea. There is one other, of 

 which I have a specimen, that was shot by an officer on the first or 

 second day of January, 1856, at the Monastery of St. George, where 

 he said that there were a good many, and that he observed a number 

 flying over the land : he looked for them on many occasions afterwards, 

 but never saw another. This bird, the redbilled gull, is to be found 

 described and figured by Prince Charles Lucien Bonaparte, in 

 ' Iconographia della Fauna Italica,' as Xema Lambruschini, and I am 

 indebted to Mr. Gould and Mr. George Gray for its identification ; 

 and I must here say that I have received great kindness from those 

 gentlemen, in the way in which they have given me much valuable 

 information. 



A friend of mine, who was pretty well acquainted with the gulls 

 of Britain, told me that during the winter he observed what he con- 

 sidered to be the little gull (Lams minutus), and also the masked gull 

 (Lams capistratus), but he never had a chance of examining them 

 except on the wing. In March 1 saw a small gull in Balaclava Har- 

 bour, not larger than a good sized pigeon, which had the front of the 

 head, bill and end of wings black, and the feet either red or black ; 

 this bird I also observed in Baltjic Bay, on the west coast of the 

 Black Sea, two days after. 



The Manx shearwater (Puffinus cmglorum) is the species which the 

 Turks consider to carry the souls of the condemned dragomen in their 

 crops, during their uninterrupted flight up and down the Bosphorus ; 

 however, 1 did not hear of any on the Crimean coast. 



Addenda. — The two following species of the family Strigidae were 

 omitted in their proper places, namely, the little owl (Strix passerina), 

 which was obtained by Lieut. Irby in the Crimea, and of which 

 Mr. Gurney informs me there is a specimen in the Norwich Museum 

 from that locality, which, however, he says is of the " light coloured 

 variety." Tengmalm's owl {Slrix Tengmalmi) has been mentioned, 

 but only as " very doubtful;" I now find, from Dr. William Carte's 

 valuable paper on the * Natural History of the Crimea,' published by 

 the Royal Dublin Society, that he obtained this bird. 



Appended is a list of errata in the foregoing papers : any after mis- 

 takes readers must be good enough to overlook, for before these lines 



