RARER BRITISH BIRDS. 
61 
LITTLE GULL. 
Chroicocephalus Minutus. Pallas. 
A slight notice of this bird only occurs in Bewick’s 
“ History of British Birds.” This being the case, therefore, 
and the bird being rather an interesting one, as the smallest of 
our British Gulls, we have ventured to give some further account 
of it, together with a woodcut. Montagu, in the appendix to 
his “Ornithological Dictionary,” gives an etching of this spe- 
cies, together with the first account, that we are aware of, of its 
occurrence in the British isles. The specimen he inspected was 
one in an immature state of plumage, killed near Chelsea, on 
the Thames, and was then in the collection of Mr. Plasted of 
that place. Since the time of Montagu, however, other speci- 
mens have occurred, so as leave no doubt of its title to a place 
in the British Fauna. 
The Little Gull, in its adult winter dress, has the under 
plumage, forehead, and tail, of a pure white, the former 
sometimes slightly tinted with rose colour; upper plumage, of 
