I40 THE ESSEX WNATURALIS 
wigs, fragments of eggshells of Guillemot and Razorbill, grass, 
and small stones, a very mixed diet.99 
Specimens in the Essex Museum are composed of crab-frag- 
ments, broken fragments of mussel shells, fish vertebre and other 
bones, including the pavement-like pharyngeal teeth of wrasse, 
two entire legs of a small passerine bird, teeth and bones of a 
young rabbit, grain-husks, the fibrous bark of the sea-mallow 
(Lavatera), and a little sand. 
LESSER BLACK-BACKED GULL. 
This Gull has been observed to throw up castings when in 
captivity, and its pellets have been picked up at the nesting- 
places. They were found to contain bones and fur of water vole, 
fish-bones, crab remains and grain-husks.1°° 
Pellets of this Gull (originally globular in shape, but now 
disintegrated) in the Essex Museum collection are made up of 
large numbers of comminuted fragments of shells of a mollusc 
(Tellina sp.), including one perfect shell with adherent valves, 
and also a few insect remains. | 
GREAT BLACK-BACKED GULL. 
Various records exist of pellets of this Gull being found 
near the nest. Mr. O. V. Aplin, for instance, records finding 
a pellet “‘ half as large again as a golf-ball, composed apparently 
entirely of Puffins’ feathers ’’ by the side of a nest,’ and other 
observers have found pellets in similar close juxtaposition to the 
DeSts: 
During the autumn of 1921 I found a casting, almost certainly 
of this species of gull, on the saltings of Canvey Island, which was 
entirely made up of fragments of crab’s claws, but which was so 
fragile as to crumble at a touch and so could not be preserved. 
The recorded contents of the pellets include fur and bones of 
young rabbits, crabs’ claws, fur and bones of moles, voles and 
shrews, the remains of mole being particularly abundant accord- 
ing to one observer. 
LARUS DOMINICANUS. 
Mr. T. H. Potts, F.L.S., found castings in or about the ae of 
this New Zealand gull, dian contained remains of mussels.?°3 
99 cf. Zoologist, 1880, p. 362 ; ibid. 1894, p. 343. British Birds, iv., p. 124. Zoologist, 1906, 
p. 94. Glasgow Naturalist, ii., 1910, pp. 13¢-1. 
100 Zoologist, 1895, p. oie ibid, 1960, p. 94. Saunders’s British Birds, 1889, p. 660. 
1o1 Zoolog st, 1903, p. 2 ; 
102 Zoologist, 1886, p. se : ibid. 1890, p. 326. 
103 Zoologist, 1875, p. 4487. 
