ZOOLOGY. 105 



LARUS EBURNEUS?? 



While in depot camp, on the Des Chutes river, 150 miles south of the Dalles of the Columbia, 

 a beautiful white gull, which I supposed to have been of this species, was killed by Lieut. Crook, 

 United States army, and brought to me. The specimen was afterward unfortunately lost, but 

 my notes and recollections satisfy me that this was the bird. We were, at that time, two hun- 

 dred miles from the oceaD, and not nearer than about one hundred miles to any considerable 

 body of water, the nearest being the Klamath lakes. 



LARUS BONAPARTII ? ? 



Bonaparte's gull was not common in the coast of California during my visit, though their 

 range is said to extend to the Columbia. On my return, in December, I noticed numbers of 

 them in the bay of Panama, where they were fishing with the pelicans and often stealing from 

 them. 



LARUS CALIFORNICUS ? ? 



This gull seems to occupy, in its migrations, the entire western coast of North America. At 

 the mouth of the Columbia, October, 1855, 1 observed them "sponging" their subsistence from the 

 pelicans ; and in November, in the bay of San Francisco, I again saw them similarly occupied. 

 Compared with the associated species, these birds are generally rare. 



LARUS GLAUCESCENS? 



This gull is not very common in those parts of California and Oregon of which I had oppor- 

 tunities of studying the water birds. A few of them followed the steamer in the passage from 

 the Columbia to San Francisco, and subsequently from San Francisco southward. They are, 

 apparently, nowhere as abundant as the western herring gull, (L. occidentalis.) 



LARUS HEERMANNI. 



This pretty gull inhabits the bays and rivers of California quite generally, but nowhere in 

 great abundance. We saw them at the junction of Feather river and the Sacramento more 

 abundantly than elsewhere. On a rocky island, at the entrance of San Pablo bay, I shot one 

 of these birds, in the dark plumage, and he fell on the rocks apparently dead; in a few minutes 

 he manifested signs of life, and I took special pains to go to him and kill him as I thought very 

 dead ; half an hour after I was slightly surprised to see him take wing and fly off as smartly as 

 ever, his intellect, however, was evidently disturbed, for he mounted as directly upward as pos- 

 sible, and as long as I could see him he was still ascending, going up till lost in the distance. 



LARUS OCCIDENTALIS? 



This is almost the only gull about the wharves of San Francisco, and is there incredibly 

 abundant, sometimes almost filling the air and covering the water among the shipping. It has 

 very much the appearance of its eastern representative, and is equally familiar, gluttonous, and 

 noisy. 



The shores of the bays of San Francisco and San Pablo are sometimes for many rods whitened 

 with these birds, either seeking their food along the water's edge when the tide is out, or, when 

 it is full, sitting lazily in groups, apparently waiting for the ebb. 



It is found following up the course of the Sacramento for a hundred miles or more, and alon°- 

 14 BB 



