THE GENUS LARUS. 
^57 
First Winter Plumage. — Beak bluish black ; the extreme 
tip, and a small portion of the base of the under mandible 
dusky horn-colour ; iris and naked circle brown ; feet flesh- 
colour, tinged with pale blue, inclining to verdigris green 
about the knee ; claws blackish-brown. Head light grey, 
streaked with pale brown ; throat greyish-white : ocular 
bristles blackish ; back confusedly mottled with hair-brown, 
on a brownish- white basis, tinged with yellow, in patches 
increasing in size and deepness of tint downwards ; wings 
mottled in the same manner, but the brown deeper, ap- 
proaching to liver-brown ; primaries, primary-coverts, and 
secondaries, blackish-bro\vn. The arrangement of dark 
colour on the back is in single spots on each feather, which 
also prevails on the wing-coverts ; but the quill-coverts have 
the inner webs brown, with processes to the number of four 
shooting into the light colour of the outer webs, the inter- 
vals ash-grey. The bases of the back feathers are pale 
ash ; their edges and tips of the ground colour described 
above. On the rump and tail-coverts, white predominates ; 
tail-feathers white at the base, with irregular spots and 
blotches ; deep-brown predominates at the end, but is irre- 
gularly encroached upon ; the side-feathers nearly all white. 
The whole under-surface whitish, tinged with ash and yel- 
low, with very pale brown spots; under- wing-coverts mottled, 
brownish-ash and pale brown ; axillaries brownish-ash at 
the base, with irregular bands of pale brown towards the 
end. The specimen from which this description is taken, 
is in the possession of Mr John Wilson, and was killed in 
January 1824 
Second Winter Plumage, — Beak deep-brown, tinged with 
blue toward the end, the tip horn-colour, the base, espe- 
cially of the under mandible, yellowish, tinged with brown ; 
angle of the mouth, and naked margins of the eyes yellow- 
VOL. V. E 
