OCR Text |
Show 1882.] FROM PERU AND CHILI. 525 Nov. 1881. Eyes brown. No. 77, Payta, January 1882. Eyes black 1 This rather small Gull, with a dark slate-black hood in the nuptial dress, is now well known as a winter visitant to the Pacific coast as far south as Chili. Its breeding-grounds are m Manitoba and other northern portions of America, chiefly to the west of 90° W . long., or say, roughly, the prolongation of the line of the Mississippi. LARUS SERRANUS, Tsch. Larus serranus, Tschudi, Wiegm. Arch. 1844, pt. i. p. 314 ; Scl. &Salv. P.Z.S. 1871, p- 577 ; Saund. op. cit. 1878, p. 196. [No. 10, Callao Bay, August 1881.] A fine adult of this much larger species, with the full black hood of breeding-plumage. It is known to breed on the islands and shores of the Andean lakes ; but its eggs and nestlings are, I believe, still undescribed. During the bad weather in the mountains it comes down to the Pacific coast; but as yet it has not been found on the eastern slope, nor in the Argentine provinces, the bird thus named by Burmeister being clearly L. maculipennis. LARUS CIRRHOCEPHALUS, Vieill. Larus cirrhocephalus, Vieillot, in 2nd ed. Nouv. Diet. Hist. Nat. t. xxi. p. 502 (1818) ; Saunders, P. Z. S. 1878, p. 204. [No. 7 5 ( d ) , no. 76 ( $ ), Payta, January 1882. Eyes bright silvery grey ; legs and beak red.] Both these examples are adults, and even old birds, as evidenced by the size of the subapical mirror in the first and second primaries. But although the month of January corresponds to our midsummer, nevertheless these birds show only a little of the pale grey hood characteristic of the nuptial season. In Argentine specimens the hood is assumed from September onwards, and, following the usual rule with Gulls of the southern hemisphere, the birds may be expected to breed about November. Where this Gull breeds, however, is as yet a mystery, as is also the route by which it reaches the Pacific coast. All that'is known is that it occurs on the coast, bays, and lakes of Brazil from about Rio de Janeiro down to Buenos Ayres, and up the La Plata and the Parana ; but accounts of its breeding-habits in those districts, such as those of Hudson (P. Z. S. 1870, p 802, and 1871, p. 4), really apply to a totally different species, namely L. maculipennis, Licht. Without any connecting links in the chain of distribution, L. cirrhocephalus makes its appearance on the coast of Peru, these two examples making the third and fourth known to me from there, its range on the Pacific side being from the Chincha Islands, in about 13°, to Payta in 5° S. lat. In this connexion it is necessary to point out an error into which mv friend Mr. R. B. Sharpe has fallen, owing to the want of genuine specimens of this Gull in the British Museum, a deficiency which I W e since supplied. In his Report on the birds collected by Dr. Coppinger, of H.M.S. 'Alert' (P. Z. S. 1881, p. 16), Mr. Sharpe, |