240 THE BIRDS OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



opportunity of correcting an oversight made in my 

 communication to the 'Zoologist,' temp, supra cit., 

 where I find that, oblivious of the first specimen 

 above recorded, I wrote that I had " never handled 

 an adult Northamptonshire specimen." Besides 

 these captures, I may perhaps have identified this 

 species in adult plumage in the neighbourhood of 

 Lilford on three or four occasions. 



In comparison with the Herring-Gull the present 

 species is uncommon in my experience on the south 

 coast of England during the summer months to the 

 eastward of Torbay ; on the bank of shingle and 

 sand that separates Slapton Lea from the sea I 

 frequently noticed adult birds during July and 

 August in a proportion (roughly speaking) of about 

 three to twenty Herring-Gulls ; on the coast of 

 Cornwall the numbers of this species increase, and 

 if my memory serves me rightly, we found it to be 

 common and breeding on some islets of the Scilly 

 group in 1852 ; I found it in abundance during the 

 summer on the coast of North Wales, but have never 

 visited any of the large breeding colonies that exist 

 in various parts of Great Britain, not by any means 

 only on the sea-coasts, but also frequently upon 

 islands in freshwater lakes, and on open boggy 

 moss-lands and moors. In the Mediterranean I 

 found this bird abundant in certain localities and 

 extremely scarce in others ; I am aquainted with two 

 breeding-stations of the Lesser Black-back in that 

 sea, but believe that it is much more abundant 

 therein during the winter than in the breeding- 

 season. For some reason that I am hitherto unable 

 to discover, I never have succeeded in keeping this 

 species alive at Lilford for any considerable length 



