588 LARID^. 



primary, and the ends of the first six are deep black, most 

 of them slightly tipped with white ; the inner web of the 

 first primary, with the outer webs of the three following ones, 

 with their shafts, are pure white ; bill shining black ; inside 

 of the mouth and the legs bright carmine-red ; irides dark 

 brown." In winter the hood is lost, and the occiput and 

 ear-coverts are merely streaked with blackish. 



The female is a little smaller than the male, but there is 

 no difference in plumage ; and the statements by Audubon 

 and Bonaparte that the female has a brown hood are inex- 

 plicable. The average length is from fourteen inches to 

 fifteen inches and a half ; wing, from the bend to the end of 

 the longest quill-feather, ten inches. 



A young bird in its first plumage, killed at the end of 

 August, has the crown of the head, back of the neck, scapu- 

 lars, and interscapulars mottled with greyish-brown, with 

 paler tips ; middle of the wing and tertiaries grey, barred 

 with blackish-brown, the tips lighter ; outer webs of first 

 and second primaries black, with a streak of the same on the 

 inside next the shaft ; margins of inner webs white ; throat 

 and upper part of the breast white ; tail white, with a 

 blackish-brown bar ; bill brownish, pale at the base beneath ; 

 legs clay-coloured. 



The lower figure here given is intended to represent the 

 anterior half of an adult bird in the breeding-plumage ; the 

 entire figure placed on the rock is a young bird in the dress 

 of its first winter. 



Bonaparte's Gull may easily be recognized by its small size 

 — only exceeding that of the Little Gull, L. minutus — its 

 comparatively slender bill, and by the white margins to the 

 inner webs of the outer primaries, at all stages. With 

 approaching maturity the white extends to both webs, except 

 the outer web of the first primary, which is always black ; 

 and the broad black ends to the first six quill-feathers are 

 also characteristic. 



