LAUUS. 97 



This small giill is often abundant al)out Manila Bay but does not 

 remain throughout the year. 



87. LARUS VEG/E (Palmen). 



VEGA GULL. 



Lams aryentatus var. vegce Palmen, Vega Exped., Vetensk (1887), 5, 370. 



Larus legte Saunders, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. (1896), 25, 269; Sharpe, 

 Hand-List (1899), 1, 141; Hartlaub, Abhandl. Xatur. Ver. Bremen 

 (1899), 16, heft. 2, 270; McGregor and Wobcester, Hand-Li.st (1906), 

 21. 



Luzon (Schmacker). Bering Sea and Arctic Siberia; Ciiinese coasts, Japan, 

 Formosa, and Bonin Islands in winter. 



Adult male in breeding plumage. — Head, neck, tail, and under parts 

 white; mantle and wing surface french-gray, with broad white tips to 

 the scapulars and secondaries, making a conspicuous alar bar; all the 

 primaries tipped witli white; outermost quill blackish from the base 

 downward (save a narrow gray wedge on inner web), with a white tip 

 63 mm. in length in mature birds, and a narrow, black bar wbich 

 divides the white into tip and "mirror"' in the majority; second (|uill 

 blackish for about 10 mm. on both sides of shaft, with a black sul)- 

 terminal liar, a white mirror, and, on the inner web, a broad, gray wedge 

 which sometimes breaks through and joins the mirror ; third quill gray- 

 ish basally, blackish on the lower part of outer web and on the sub- 

 terminal bar, gray on the inner web, passing into white at the apex of 

 the wedge; fourth similar but gray on both webs above the bar; fifth 

 quill similar but 1)ar narrower; sixth gray, without a bar in mature 

 birds and with a narrow bar in others; the remaining (|uills gray with 

 white tips. In less mature birds there is no mirror on the second quill. 

 Ring around eye and gape bright orange-red ; tarsi and toes pale flesii- 

 color. Length, about 610; wing, 457; tail. 1!)7; culmen, 7-1; tarsus, 70; 

 middle toe with claw, 6(5. 



The female is smaller and less robust. 



Adult in winter. — Similar but head antl mvk streaked with ash-browii 



I tn mature and young. — In the first autumn the upi)er jiarts are streaked 

 and mottled with brown and grayish buff; ([uills dark umber, with paler 

 inner webs and whitish tips to most ; rectrices similar, but more or less 

 mottled with whitish at bases of two or three outer pairs; feathers of 

 upper tail-coverts brown, with huffish white tips; under parts nearly 

 uniform brown at first, but afterwards brownish gray, mottled; bill 

 blackish, paler at base of lower mandible. The second autumn the 

 head is nearly white, streaked with grayish brown; the upper parts are 

 barred with brown on a grayish ground, though no ])ui-e gray feathers 

 have yet made their ai)])earance on mantle; <|uills paler; tail more mottled 

 with white at the bases of all the feathers. In the third autumn the 

 feathers of the nuintle are chiefly gray, with some brownish streaks 

 77719 7 



