42 
GULL-BILLED TEEN. 
The eggs are two, three, or four in number, of a pale, as 
also of a dull greenish or yellowish olive-colour, marked and 
spotted with pale grey, reddish brown of two shades, and 
olive brown. 
Male; length, one foot three inches and a half; bill, strong 
and black, with a projecting angle, as in the Gull tribe; a 
white streak runs back from it to the eye; iris, dark reddish 
brown; before the eye there is in winter a greyish black spot, 
and another towards the hinder part of the side of the head; 
forehead, head on the crown and back, neck on the back, 
and nape, silky black; afterwards a few of the feathers become 
edged with white, the shafts being the same, and so gradually 
more and more, till the former colour is entirely lost in the 
winter, except a few dusky dots behind the eyes; the feathers 
are rather elongated; chin, throat, and breast, white; back, 
dark bluish grey. 
The wings are two feet ten inches in extent; they reach 
more than two inches beyond the end of the tail; greater 
and lesser wing coverts, dark bluish grey; of the primaries, 
the first is dark hoary grey, the others lighter; their tips 
and half of the inner webs next to the shafts, grey, darkest 
at the tips of the first five—nearly black, less dark in winter; 
the shafts white; secondaries and tertiaries, dark bluish grey; 
greater and lesser under wing coverts, white. Tail, pale bluish 
grey; the shafts of the feathers white, as is the outer feather 
on each side; upper tail coverts, pale bluish grey; under tail 
coverts, white; legs and toes, reddish black; the hind toe is 
lengthened; the claws are long and straight; webs, blackish 
red. 
The female is like the male. 
The young are in the earlier stage mottled with brownish 
grey. In the first year the bill is bluish black; head on the 
crown, dull white, varied with pale brown and dusky streaks; 
a spot of greyish black behind the eye; neck and nape, white; 
chin, throat, and breast, white; back, dull orange brown, 
spotted with darker brown. Greater and lesser wing coverts, 
grey, tipped with pale dull orange brown; primaries, grey; 
tertiaries, dull orange brown, spotted with darker brown; 
greater and lesser under wing coverts, white. Tail, with not 
much grey; legs and toes, black. 
The engraving is from a drawing by John Gatcombe, Esq., 
of Plymouth. 
