69 
Brudugavia melanorliyncha * ; but as the retention of Bonaparte’s subdivision is considered unde- 
sirable, I must now follow other authors in referring both this and the preceding species to the larger 
and better-defined genus Larus. Finding that the above title had already been bestowed on another 
member of the genus, by Temminck, Professor Hutton did me the honour to associate my name with 
the present species, which was figured for the first time in my former edition. 
Another well-known local naturalist, Mr. T. H. Potts, paid me a similar compliment in proposing 
the name of Larus hulleri for a yellow-billed Gull, which he considered distinct. In treating of the 
latter bird (Birds New Zeal. 1st ed. p. 277) I stated that, whilst expressing my acknowledgments, I 
was unable to recognize the supposed specific distinction. On a careful comparison of the two birds, I 
found that they corresponded exactly in size, in the form of the bill, and in the colours of the plumage, 
even the eccentric markings on the primary quills being the same in both. The only difference, there- 
fore, was in the colour of the bill and legs ; and such a distinction could not be accepted as having any 
specific value till it had been shown that the difference of colour was constant in both birds all 
tbe year round. As opposed to the latter view, I mentioned that in the autumn of 1871 I had shot a 
specimen, on the sand-banks at Hokitika, in which the bill was pale coral-red in its basal portion, 
and brownish black beyond the nostrils, indicating, as it appeared to me, a transition to the black bill 
characteristic of the full winter plumage. Dr. Finsch, to whom I had forwarded skins of both for 
examination, concurred in this opinion ; but he also went further, and referred the species to Larus 
pomare of Bruch (supposed to be from the Society Islands), although he complained of the 
extreme confusion and insufficiency of all Bruch’s descriptions. While attaching great weight to 
the opinion of so careful an ornithologist as Dr. Finsch, 1 was unable to adopt his view in this 
case ; for having visited the Museum at Mainz and examined the type of Larus pomarre for myself, I 
found that it had a more robust bill than our bird, and more black on the primaries ; while the young, 
in addition to the spotted markings on the back and wings, which appear to be common to the whole 
group, had dark ear-coverts, and a brown terminal band across the tail. 
Mr. Howard Saunders in his revision of the Larince (P. Z. S. 1878) has cleared up the con- 
fusion in the nomenclature of this species with Larus pomare. He states that during a recent visit 
to Bremen he went into the whole question with Dr. Finsch, who had previously studied the subject, 
and had made numerous and careful drawings of the primaries of Bruch’s types of L, pomare in the 
Mainz Museum, and of many other specimens. He gives figures of the three outer primaries of 
Ijarus hulleri, and says “ I have examined the type of Bruch’s L. pomare of 1855, and it is un- 
doubtedly of this species ; but the type of his L. pomarre of 1853 is as certainly L. novce-hollandioe.” 
(See woodcuts on page 62.) This explanation puts the matter in a perfectly clear light; and both 
pomare (Bruch) and melanorliyncha (mihi) having been previously employed for other species, our 
Black-billed Gull must stand as Larus hulleri, Hutton, under which name it is again described and 
figured here. I have recently visited Mainz again, and verified for myself the above observations. 
On the habits of this species, as observed by Mr. Travers on Lake Guyon, in the provincial 
district of Nelson, I have much pleasure in quoting the following account from that gentleman’s facile 
pen : — “ The Black-billed Gull breeds on the main river-bed ; and one or more pairs usually frequent 
* Mr. Howard Saunders, in his revision of the Larince, in the Proc. Zool. Soo. 1878, p. 161, notices my having adopted 
Bonaparte’s Bruchic/avia, “ a genus playfully made,” for a New-Zealand species, this being, as he states, “ its only claim to 
remembrance.” He had apparently forgotten that Mr. Gould, in his ‘ Handbook to the Birds of Australia ’ (published in 1865), 
adopted Bonaparte’s playful name for “ a genus of Gulls the members of which are delicate in their structure, elegant in their 
appearance, and graceful in all their actions ” — deliberately substituting that generic title for Xema, the one previously used in 
his folio edition. In 1869, in a communication to ‘ The Ibis,’ I described a new species of this group from New Zealand, and 
provisionally referred it to that genus under the name of Bruchigavia melamrhyneha ; but when I treated of the genus more 
exhaustively in my ‘ Birds of New Zealand ’ (1st ed., 1S73), I adopted the generic division of Larus for this {=L. hulleri) and 
the allied species. 
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