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Show 574 MESSRS. SCLATER AND SALVIN [June 20, This is a very distinct species, quite erroneously united by some authors to L. belcheri, and by others to L. modestus. The young bird is of a uniform brown, very similar to the corresponding stage of Larus heermanni, but immediately recognizable by its much stouter bill. The adult bird is of a nearly uniform cinereous, with a well-marked blackish hood ; the wing-primaries are black ; the tail cinereous like the body, with the upper coverts greyish white and the under coverts still paler. The legs and feet are black ; the bill black, with the point of the upper mandible reddish. The small ciliary plumes all round the eye are of a bright reddish orange. 3. LARUS HEERMANNI. Larus heermanni, Cass. Proc. Acad. N . Sc. Phil. vi. 187 (1852), et B. Calif, p. 28, pl. 5. Blasipus heermanni, Bp. Consp. Av. ii. p. 211; Baird, B. N. A. p. 849; Coues, Ibis, 1864, p. 388; Salvin, Ibis, 1866, p. 198, Hab. Coast of Western Mexico (Abert) ; Pacific coast of Guatemala (Salvin). Fig. 3. Head of Larus heermanni (reduced one-third). Our reason for including this Gull in the list of Neotropical Laridee is its occurrence on the western coast of Guatemala, where, however, Salvin only obtained it in immature plumage. From the Museum of the University of Cambridge we have received a very fine series of skins of this species for examination. These were collected by the late Mr. James Hepburn, F.Z.S., on various points of the coasts of British Columbia and California. A very slight examination of them is sufficient to show how mistaken Prof. Schlegel was in uniting Larus heermanni to L. belcheri and L. fuliginosus. L. heermanni is in plumage most like L. belcheri, but immediately distinguishable by its paler mantle and grey lower back, and by the tail being black at its base and merely tipped with white. In the present species also (see fig. 3) the frontal feathers advance along the nasal grooves, on each side of the culmen, nearly up to the opening of the nostrils. In L. belcheri (as shown in fig. 4, j). 575), the nasal grooves are bare of feathers to a very much greater extent. |