GLAUCOUS GULL, ()41 



the lower mandible orange-red ; irides straw-yellow ; all the 

 plumage nearly white, hut with a tinge of pale-grey over the 

 hack and wing-coverts ; primaries white, reaching but little, 

 if any, beyond the end of the tail ; legs and feet bright pink 

 flesh-colour. Old males have been taken measuring, from 

 the point of the beak to the end of the tail-feathers, thirty- 

 two and even thirty-thi'ee inches ; the wing, from the carpal 

 joint to the end of the longest quill-feather, nineteen inches. 

 The females are smaller : sometimes considerably so. In 

 winter the head and neck are streaked with ash-grey. 



The young has the bill pale brown at the base, the point dark 

 horn-colour ; the irides dark blue ; head, neck, back, and wing- 

 coverts a mixture of pale ash-brown and dull white ; scapulars 

 and tertials transversely barred with pale brown, and tipped 

 with greyish-white ; primaries and secondaries uniform pale 

 yellowish-grey ; upper and under tail-coverts dull white, barred 

 with pale brown ; tail-feathers uniform yellowish-brown ; 

 wings only reaching to the end of the tail ; chin, throat, 

 and breast dull white, mottled with pale brown, belly more 

 uniform in colour, and greyish-brown ; legs and feet livid 

 flesh-colour. The next year the mottlings become paler ; 

 and just before the final autumnal moult, when the pearl-grey 

 mantle will be assumed, the colour is of a nearly uniform 

 creamy or even perfect white. Birds in this particular stage, 

 which lasts but a very short time, are very rarely obtained ; 

 and on one example procured in North America Richard- 

 son bestowed the name of Larus hutchinsi ; similar ones have 

 since then been taken in Japan and in Norway, and the 

 Editor has seen birds pass through this stage in the Gardens 

 of the Zoological Society. 



The downy nestling is of a somewhat greyer tint than the 

 young Herring (lull, and the markings on the back are 

 fewer and fainter. 



4 N 



