primary, and the ends of the first six are deep black, most
of them slightly tipped with white ; the inner web of the
first primary, with the outer webs of the three following ones,
with their shafts, are pure white; bill shining black; inside
of the mouth and the legs bright carmine-red; irides dark
brown.” In winter the hood is : lost, and the occiput and
ear-coverts are merely streaked with blackish.
The female is a little smaller than the male/but there is
no difference in plumage; and the statements by Audubon
and Bonaparte that the female has a brown hood . are inexplicable.
The average length is from fourteen inches ^to
fifteen inches and a half; wing, from the bend to the end of
the longest quill-feather, ten inches.
A young bird in its first plumage, killed at the end b f
August, has the crown of the head, back of the neck,, scapulars,
and interscapulars mottled with greyish-brown,' with
paler tips; middle of the wing and tertiaries,grey,-barred
with blackish-brown, the tips lighter.;' outer webs of first
and second primaries black, With a streak of the isame-dn^the
inside next the shaft’; margins of inner webs.white; throat
and upper part of the breast white; tail white, with, a
blackish-brown barj bill brownish, pale ah-thebase beneath;
legs clay-coloured.
The lower figure here given’ is- int-endedticb represent. the
anterior half of an adult bird in the .braedingrplumage f -the
entire figure placed oh the rock is a young bird in 'the dress
of its first winter.
Bonaparte’s .Gull may easily be recognized by-its small size
—only exceeding that of the Little Gull, L.;^i®^STt-its
comparatively slender bill, and by the ^.^Wmargins to--the
inner webs of -the outer primaries, |a t all stage,s.|w With
approaching maturity, the white extends t-o Both- w.ebsffexfept
the outer web of the first primary, which is always black;
and the -broad black ends to the first, six quill-feathers are
also characteristic.
a a v i jb. LARIDJB.
LartjS-minutes, Pallas*.
THE LITTLE QElJggJ
L dr its fhiniitus.
TheSs, interesting little Pal sear ©tic- Gull,'the smallest oftits
genus, was first described and figured as a ^asitiph bird by
^©loneh Montagu-, ..in the Appendix to the Supplement of his
Omitholn.gi%ab0igtionary, from a young bird invjhe plumage
©f; the first- year that was^phojb, on the Thames near.Chelsea.,
and then in^t^ig- possession of Mr. Plasted^of that plaee, at
the sale of whose aollection.it passed intoithe possession of
Mr.r?Leadbeater. Mr4 ,Bullo_cKiP.S^§lebraJ^ eplleetipn~cton-
* Reise--Rusgis©Jie> Reichs,*!«. p. ^02, App. TUJfc SJiM, 17.7Gfy.&p'