376 
LARIM. 
snowy whiteness and fine black of their plumage, have a beauti- 
ful appearance with the dark foliage of the river-banks as a back- 
ground ; but sometimes both are seen in company. On one occa- 
sion, I observed an adult bird fishing as high up the Lagan as 
the first fall from the sea, while soon afterwards two immature 
birds flew up the course of the river until they joined him. They 
were no doubt the bearers of some particular intelligence, as im- 
mediately on their reaching the old bird, he wheeled about, and 
the three proceeded with their utmost speed down the river.* 
The first week in May is the latest time I have noted adult birds 
here, but the immature appear occasionally throughout that month 
and June. 
On the 7th of July, 1835, I observed an adult pair of these 
gulls on the lake of Windermere, and on the 16th, saw one at 
the bridge in the town of Lancaster. 
In the middle of May 1841, I noted L.fuscus as seen at the 
Dardanelles, and some days after, numbers as congregated toge- 
ther on the shore of the Bosphorus. These were*set down as 
L.fuscus, without a mark of doubt, but I now feel uncertain 
respecting their species, as it is stated in my journal that a gull, 
the size, of L. cams, and the colour of L.fuscus, is common at 
Constantinople, and so tame, that it will hardly go out of the 
way of the boatmen's oars. They so habitually alighted on the 
house-tops, that I thought probably they had nests there. This 
is doubtless the gull alluded to, but not named, in the following 
extract from the fourth part (1840) of Temminek's f Manuel/ &c., 
p. 472 : — “ On trouve sur les cotes de Barbarie et en Syrie, peut- 
etre aussi en Egypte, une mouette d'un quart moins grande que 
fiavi'pes \L.fuscus\, et a bee de beaucoup moins fort relative- 
ment a la taille ; mais colore exactement comme Lams flavipes 
Degland's * Ornithologie Europeenne,' published in 1849, does 
not contain any information on this species. 
* In like manner, I once observed several of the black-headed gulls feeding in a 
ploughed field half a mile from the shore of the bay, whence a single bird flew direct 
to them ; the moment it arrived they all wheeled about, and with theirbest speed 
made for the bay, where it was low water at the time ; they were not in any way 
alarmed in the field : the courier seemed to convey some special news. 
