134 BUULETIN U3, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



and low bushes. About half of the eggs had hatched, and the 

 downy young were running about or hiding. 



Ring-billed gulls were common at Lake Winnipegosis, Manitoba, 

 in 1913. We saw them almost daily and examined several breeding 

 colonies. They were on small rocky islets or reefs, where bowlders 

 had been piled up a few feet above high water and a little soil had 

 accumulated about them. On one very small reef, not over 25 yards 

 long, I counted 10 nests of ring-billed gulls and 45 nests of double- 

 crested cormorants. The islet was thickly covered with nests of the 

 common tern, of which I estimated that there were about a thousand 

 pairs. Another thickly populated island, but slightly larger, w^as 

 visited on June 19. It was similar to the other reefs — an accumula- 

 tion of bowlders, with sandy or stony shores and some soil in the 

 center, sparsely overgrown with nettles. A cloud of gulls and terns 

 were hovering over it, which I estimated to contain about 100 pairs 

 of ring-billed gulls and 500 pairs of common terns. There was 

 also a small colony of double-crested cormorants nesting on the 

 rocks at one end. The nests of the gulls and terns were closely in- 

 termingled, sometimes three or four nests within one square yard, 

 showing that the two species were living in apparent harmony. The 

 gulls' nests were very poorly built affairs, the poorest I had ever seen, 

 consisting in many cases of mere hollows lined with a few sticks 

 and straws. Some of them were more elaborate and some were pret- 

 tily decorated with feathers or lined with green weeds or leaves. 

 Most of the nests contained three eggs, but many of them only two. 

 No young were seen. 



Audubon (1840) found them breeding on the Gannet Rock, early 

 in June, " on the shelves toward the summit, along with the guille- 

 mots, while the kittiwakes had secured their nests far below." This 

 undoubtedly refers to Bird Rock in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where 

 none of this species have been found breeding in recent years. 



Dr. Charles W. Townsend writes me : 



On July 16, 1915, I found a breeding colony of ring-billed gulls on Gull Island 

 near Sealnet Point or Point au Maurier, on the Canadian Labrador coast. The 

 island is close to the shore, is composed of granitic rock with sparse vegetation 

 of grass and low herbs, and is some 10 acres in extent. On the highest ground 

 about 200 pairs of ring-billed gulls had their nests. These nests were composed 

 of moss, sprigs of curlew-berry vine, dried grass, and dried-weed stalks. The 

 nests were 12 inches in outside diameter, 6 or 7 inside diameter, generally very 

 thin, but sometimes built up to a height of 3 or 4 inches. They were placed 

 on the bare rock or among the grass. A lew herring gulls, eiders, razor-billed 

 auks, and black guillemots were also nesting on the island. 



Mr. William L. Finley (1907) describes a large colony of Cali- 

 fornia and ring-billed gulls which he found breeding on a marshy 

 island of floating tules in Klamath Lake, Oregon, which is a decided 

 departure from their usual habit of nesting on solid ground. 



