WHITE WINGED SILVERY GULL. 



305 



screaming or barking like the sound of dkdJc 'kaJcaJc. It 

 also inhabits on other islands, and he found it again in 

 Labrador. It is ravenous and tyrannical to other small 

 birds ; but the young and the eggs are considered as pala- 

 table food. They live principally upon the produce of the 

 ocean, and generally upon fish. In Europe they nest in 

 small excavations on the summits of the downs near to the 

 sea, as well as upon naked rocks, according to the con- 

 venience of the situation, and unite in great troops at their 

 breeding places. They lay 2 or 3 blunt eggs, of a deep 

 olivaceous tint, with some black and ash colored spots; 

 often also of a pale greenish or bluish hue, with brown and 

 ash colored scattering spots. 



The length of the Herring Gull is about 2 feet. Winter plumage 

 of the old birds, with the top of the head, region of the eyes, occiput, 

 nape, and sides of the neck, white, each feather with a longitudinal 

 pale brown streak. Front, throat, all the other lower parts, back and 

 tail white. Top of the back, scapulars, the whole wing and its quills 

 bluish-ash : primaries black towards their ends, all terminating in a 

 large white space ; secondaries and scapulars tipped with white. 

 Bill ochre yellow, angle of the lower mandible lively red. Orbits 

 yellow. Iris the same but pale. Feet livid flesh color. The fe- 

 males about an inch shorter than the males. 



WHITE-WINGED SILVERY GULL. 



(Larus hucopterus, Faeer, Bonap. Synops. No. 301. Richard. 

 North. Zool. ii. p. 418. " L. glaucoides, Temm." L. argentatus, 

 Sabine, Birds of Greenland, p. 546. L. arcticus, Macgillivkat. 

 Wern. Trans, v. p. 268.) 



Sp. Charact. — Mantle pale bluish-ash ; wings extending to the 

 tip of the tail ; quills greyish- white, white at the points, their shafts 

 pure white ; tarsus 2 inches. — Summer plumage, with the head 

 and neck pure white. Winter dress with the head and neck 

 streaked with brown. The young mottled and of dingy colors, 

 26* 



