THE GREAT BLACK-HEADED GULL. 741 



west to Spain, Portugal, and south-west France, occasionally as 

 far as mouth of Somme in Channel, casual also Lake of Constance, 

 Rhine, Bosnia, Hercegovina. Brehm's statement of occurrence in 

 Nubia cannot be credited. 



LARUS ICHTHYAETUS 



450. Larus ichthyaetus Pall.— THE GREAT BLACK-HEADED 

 GULL. 



Larus Ichthyaetus Pallas, Reise d. versch. Prov. d. Russ. Reichs, 11, 

 p. 713 (1773— Caspian). 



Larus ichtyaetus Pallas, Yarrell, in, p. 609 ; L. ichthyaetus Pallas, 

 Saunders, p. 669. 



Description. — Adult male and female. Winter. — Crown and nape 

 black-brown, feathers fringed and tipped varying amount of white, 

 fore-head and lores usually appearing almost uniform white, back 

 of crown and nape mottled white and black-brown, patch in front 

 of eye and wide stripe behind eye black-brown, immediately above 

 and under eye a short white line ; back of neck extending on to 

 upper-mantle, rump, upper tail-coverts, tail, chin, throat, sides of 

 neck and whole under -parts white ; mantle, back, scapulars and 

 wing-coverts slate-grey, lower scapulars tipped white ; primaries 



The Great Black-headed Gull {Lams ichthyaetus). Adult, summer. 



white, outer (2nd) with most of outer web black except at base and 

 tip which are white, and with band of black of varying width and 

 shape on inner web 50-60 mm. above white tip (occasionally in 

 female and rarely in male there is a very narrow broken black bar 

 near tip), 3rd white with narrow black bar or patch (varying greatly 

 and sometimes absent) just above tip and above it a much wider, 

 but also varying and very irregular, black band or patch (sometimes 

 mostly absent from inner web), 4th and 5th white with broad black 

 band above tip extending further on outer web and on extreme edge 

 of inner web, 6th with considerably narrower black band and with 



