COBB. 
9:3 
Lath, Syn. 6. p. 371. 2. — Lewins Br. Birds, 6. t. 208. — Pult. Cat. Dorset, p. 
18. — Wale. Syn. t. 112. — Flem. Br. Anim. p. 140.* 
The weight of this species is four pounds and three quarters ; leng-th 
near thirty inches ; breadth five feet nine or ten inches. 
Bill bright yellow, very thick and strong, three inches and a half in 
length ; on the lower mandible is a blood-red spot, dusky in the middle ; 
irides fine yellow ; eyelids red-orange. The head, neck, rump, tail, and 
whole under parts, white ; back and wing coverts dusky black ; prime 
quills black, the first tipped with white for two inches or more, the 
second the same, with a black bar across the white, the rest more 
slightly tipped with white ; the secondaries are also tipped more or less 
with white ; as are their coverts and two or three of the scapulars ; legs 
flesh colour. 
This bird and the silvery gull, hereafter described, have hitherto been 
confounded for the same species ; but from frequent opportunities of 
observing their manners, as well as by dissection, proving both sexes 
to be alike in plumage, we are able without doubt to pronounce them 
distinct species. 
It is not a very plentiful species, but is sometimes seen on most of our 
coasts, but no where so plentiful as on the extensive sandy flats of the 
coast of Caermarthenshire, between Laugharne and Tenbeigh, where 
we have seen it at all times of the year. 
They generally keep in small flocks of eight or ten, sometimes in pairs, 
but never herd with the other gulls. 
It was natural to believe, as they were seen on that coast all the 
summer, they must breed somewhere near, but in our researches from 
that part as far as St. David’s we could not discover where they bred, 
but were informed by the fishermen, that they breed on the steep 
Holmes, and on Lundy Islands in the Bristol channel. The silvery 
gull, as well as the herring gull, we found the nests of in great abun- 
dance but none of these birds were to be seen in the same places. 
The young, for the first two or three years, are mottled all over with 
brown and white ; the bill is light horn colour, tip black ; quill-feathers 
dusky ; tail mottled, near the end a dusky bar ; tips white ; irides and 
orbits dusky. We shot several birds of this description in company 
with them, of both sexes, their weight and size little inferior ; and as 
these are always found to associate with them, and as there is no other 
species of gull half so large, there can be no doubt of its being the 
young of this bird. 
In this imperfect state this has been described *by some authors for 
a distinct species, under the title of Wagel ; others who have not con- 
