264 LAKID^. 



flesh-colour (drying ochre-yellow). Total length about 24 inches, 

 culmen 3, wing 17'5, tail 7'5, tarsus 2*5, middle toe with claw 2-6. 



The female is smaller than the male, but, irrespective of sex, 

 there is great individual variation. 



Adult in ivinter. Like the above, but with brownish-grey streaks 

 on the head and neck. 



Young and Immature. In the first autumn the upper parts are 

 streaked and mottled with brown and greyish buff; quiUs dark 

 umber, with paler inner webs and whitish tips to most ; rectrices 

 similar, but more or less mottled with whitish at the bases of the 

 two or three outer pairs ; feathers of the upper tail-coverts brown, 

 with buffish-white tips ; underparts nearly uniform brown at first, 

 but afterwards brownish grey, mottled : bill blackish, paler at the 

 base of the lower mandible. The second autumn the head is 

 nearly white, streaked with greyish brown ; the upper parts are 

 barred with brown on a greyish ground, though no pure grey 

 feathers have yet made their appearance on the mantle ; quills 

 paler ; tail more mottled with white at the bases of all the feathers. 

 In the third autumn the feathers of the mantle are chiefly grey, 

 with some brownish streaks down the shafts ; a faint sub-apical 

 spot begins to show on the outermost primary ; the tail-coverts are 

 partly white, and the dark portion of the rectrices is much broken 

 up : underparts nearly white. In the fourth autumn the sub- 

 apical patch on the first primary is larger, and the quills from the 

 oth upwards are banded with black and tipped with white ; tail- 

 feathers white, slightly vermiculated with brown : bill greenish 

 yellow basally, reddish black at the angle. At the moult of the 

 fifth autumn all brown markings are lost, the primaries have white 

 tips, black bars and grey wedges, though the proportion of dark 

 colouring in the quills is greater than it is in older birds. 



Nestling. Greyish buff, variably streaked and spotted with 

 blackish on the upper parts and throat. 



Considerable variation exists in the tint of the upper parts 

 in this species ; birds from France being dark, while Northern 

 examples are as a rule paler. This is especially the case as regards 

 the primaries, in some of which the dark portion of the pattern is 

 hardly more than deep lead-colour, as in an example obtained by 

 Mr. E. W. Nelson at Chicago on March 27, in which, moreover, 

 the mirror on the 2nd quill unites with the grey wedge of the 

 inner web. The frequent absence of this mirror on the 2nd 

 primary in American birds has been made one of the principal 

 distinctions for Larus argentatus smithsoniamis, but many American 

 birds have this white spot. The explanation which has been given 

 of this is that " European birds frequently cross the Atlantic " ; in 

 which case they have reached Chicago, and even Prince Albert 

 Land, beyond 110° W. long, and 70^" N. lat., for a specimen from 

 that locality is the counterpart of the Chicago example ! American 

 birds of the first year are, however, darker as a rule than European 

 examples, though there is much variation in this respect, even in 

 young obtained in the same locality and on the very same day. 



