laridjE—larin^: gulls. 99a 



Hind toe only appearing as a minute knob, its claw abortive. Adult (J 9 , in breeding plu- 

 mage : Bill light yellow, more or less clouded with olivaceous. Head and neck all round, 

 under parts and tail, pure white. Mantle rather dark bluish or cinereous-blue; secondaries of 

 the same color nearly to their tips, which are white. Primaries: 1st bluish-white, without 

 white tip, its outer web, and its inner web for about 2.00 from tip, black; 2d like 1st, but 

 without the black outer web, its tip being black for nearly the same distance as 1st, with a 

 minute white spot at tip ; on 3d and 4th the black grows shorter, while the tips are more 

 broadly white — this lessening of black on each feather exactly proportional to shortening of 

 successive quills, bringing bases of all the black tips in the same straight line (a pattern pe- 

 culiar to the species of iJissa). Feet blackish. Iris reddish-brown ; eye-ring red. Adults in 

 winter: Occiput, nape, and sides of breast clouded with color of back, deepening into slate 

 over auriculars ; a small but well-defined black crescent before eye. Bill more clouded with 

 olivaceous. Otherwise as in summer. Young: Bill black; ante-ocular crescent and post- 

 ocular spot dusky ; a broad bar across neck behind, all lesser and median wing-coverts, bas- 

 tard quills, inner secondaries except at their edges, and a terininal bar on tail, black. First 4 

 primaries with their outer webs, outer half of inner webs, and ends for some distance, black, 

 the rest pearly white ; 5th and (»th black only at the ends, their tips with a white speck. Nest- 

 lings in down whitish, shaded with gray and buff on the upper parts, but not distinctly spotted 

 — thus unlike those of iarws. Length IG. 00-18. 00; extent 36.00; wing 12.25; bill above 

 1.40 to 1.50; along rictus 2.10; height at base 0.50; at angle 0.40; tarsus 1.30; middle toe 

 and claw 1.80. Arctic America, Asia, and Europe, chiefly coastwise, very abundant; breeds 

 from Magdalen Islands N. to beyond lat. 80° ; ranges in winter S. to the Middle States and 

 region of the Great Lakes. Nest of seaweeds, etc., not on the ground like those of most Gulls, 

 but on ledges of rocks and cliffs overhangiug the water, such as Guillemots and Auks select. 

 Eggs 2, 3, or 4, about 2.25 X 1.70, colored like those of other Gulls. 



R. t. kotzebue'i. (To Otto von Kotzebue, the Russian navigator.) Kotzebue's Kitti- 

 WAKE. It is a curious fact that the Kitliwake of the North Pacific usually has the hind toe 

 better formed — sometimes nearly if not quite as long as in ordinary Gulls, with a nearly or 

 quite perfect, though small, claw. But I cannot predicate a specific character on this score, 

 since the development of the toe is by insensible degrees : see CoUES, Proc. Phila. Acad. 1869, 

 p. 207; Birds N. W. 1874, p. 644. N. Pacific coast, abundant; breeding far N., in winter S. 

 sometimes to southern California; has been taken in Lower California; habits, nest, and eggs 

 the same as those of the common Kittiwake. R. t. pollicnris of A. 0. U. Lists, No. 40 a. 

 K. breviros'tris. (Lat. brevirostris. short-billed; brevis, short; rostrum, beak.) Siiort- 

 lULLHu Kittiwake. Ked-lecged Kittiwake. Bill very short, stout, wide at base ; 

 upper mandible nmch curved, though not attenuated nor very acute. Convexity of culmen 

 very great toward tip ; tlie culmen being, from nostrils to tip, almost the arc of a circle whose 

 centre is the symphyseal eminence. Outline of mandibular rami and gonys both somewhat 

 concave: emineutia symphysis slightly deveh)ped. Tarsus hardly more than 3 middle toe and 

 claw. Folded wings reaching far beyond tail. Tail of moderate length, even. Adult ^ 9> 

 brccdini,' plumage: Bill straw-yellow, with little or no olivaceous tinge; iris hazel; eye-ring 

 red. Head and neck all round, under parts and tail, pure white. Mantle deep leaden or bluish- 

 gray, much darker than in tridnctyla; this color extending on wings to within 0.50 of the tips 

 of the secondaries, which terminal half-inch is white. Primaries: 1st with shaft and outer 

 vane bhick, but on its inner vane a space of dull gray (not white), which at base occupies 

 nearly all the vane, but gradually narrows until it cuds by a well-defined rounded termina- 

 tion half as broad as the vane itself, about 2.50 from tlie tip, these 2\ inches being black, like 

 the outer vane; 2d: outer vane of the .same leaden-gray as back, to within 4.(K) of tip, inner 

 vane of a rather liirhter shad«! of tlie sam(! color to within 3.(M) <if the tii>, the gray ending nb- 

 ru[itiy ; 3il like tlir 2d, but the gray extending farther, leaving only a space of 2.00 black, and 



63 



