7940 



Birds. 



the adult bird are dark lead-colour, with the shaft and tips white ; in the young bird 

 the same feathers are white, with a narrow stripe of black on each side of the shaft, 

 which is white, the ends black, with a minute speck of white at the extreme point of 

 each feather. — Frederick Bond; Kingsbury, February 20, 1852. 



Occurrence of the Little Gull at Plymouth — A very interesting specimen of the 

 little gull was killed in Plymouth Sound on Monday, February 3rd. It was fishing 

 in company with several common gulls, and mistaken by the person who shot it for a 

 tern; but ultimately it fell iuto the hands of a person who knew better, and was thus 

 fortunately preserved. The specimen was a female, in excellent condition, weighing 

 7 ounces. The contents of the stomach was not examined, but in the gullet was 

 found a fly. Having been obtained so late in the season, the plumage, though immature, 

 was very interesting. Notwithstanding dark markings on the wings and a broad black 

 band on the tail, the black head of the breeding season was already partially assumed, 

 dark feathers appearing on the cheeks and throat, forming a complete circle round 

 the neck, — showing how far that colour would have extended, and also that the little 

 gull attains the black head very early in the spring, and before it. has arrived at per- 

 fect maturity. The bill was black, the legs flesh-colour, and the length of wing from 

 the carpal joint 8^ inches. The bird is now in the collection of Mr. T. C. Hiugston, 

 of Plymouth. — John Gaicombe ; Wyndham Place, Plymouth, February 15, 1862. 



Breeding Habits of the Petrel. — The Rev. I. Ambrose, of Halifax, N.A., in a 

 letter read to the Boston Society of Natural History, U. S., communicates some inte- 

 resting particulars relative to a visit to Green Island, about ten miles out at sea, off 

 the mouth of Chester Bay, Nova Scotia. He landed on the north side of the island. 

 Not a puffin or any o;her kind of bird was to be seen, save a large number of 

 " steering" gulls and some mackerel" gulls flying overhead ; whilst the whole island 

 under loot was perforated and undermined by the petrels. He says : — " I first took a 

 tour all round the grassy edge of the cliffs to look for gulls' eggs. I got two dozen of 

 the steeling gulls' eggs, and the men eight dozen. Tore up the turf with my hands, 

 following the little galleries with my fingers, and soon secured four dozen and a half 

 of petrel's eggs, and two of the parent birds as specimens. I could have obtained, I 

 suppose, a thousand dozen of the eggs if I had wished, and every mother bird with 

 them, as the poor little things crowd back into their holes, making not the slightest 

 noise or resistance whilst they beheld the roof rudely torn from their dwelling and 

 their eggs taken away. In no instance, except one, did I find more than one egg iu 

 a nest, and in that there were but two ; and yet some of the birds were hatching, as 

 some of the eggs contained the embryo, with its head and body so far developed as to 

 clearly identify the species. The smell of the birds is at first very offensive; indeed 

 we perceived it at a distance of two miles from the island. This smell is not occa- 

 sioned by any decayed fish or other extraneous matter, as the nests and surrounding 

 turf are invariably very clean, the nest itself being lined at the bottom with a very 

 little dry fine grass. The odour is peculiar to the bird and its egg, and is particularly 

 nerceptible in the dark brown oily fluid which, seemingly in self-defence, these birds 

 eject from their bills. The sun was just rising when we landed on the island ; and 

 although we had seen several petrels flying about the boat in the night and at dawn 

 of day on our passage, yet on the island not one was to be seen : all were under- 

 ground, where at first you could hear them twittering, as if arranging about nests and 

 accommodation ; but soon after sunrise they became almost entirely silent, at least so 

 fur as the screaming of the gulls, which was always about the same, would enable you 



