C. ATRICILLA : BLACK-HEADED GULL. 35 I 



the Gannets, as well as along the Labrador coast ; and 

 a few also breed on the coast of Maine and in the Bay 

 of Fundy. 



BLACK-HEADED OR LAUGHING GULL. 



Chroicocephalus ATRICILLA {L.) Lazvr 



Chars. A species of medium size, of less robust form and slenderer 

 bill than most of the foregoing. In the breeding season the 

 white of the under parts rosy-tinted, and the head enveloped 

 in a dark-colored hood. Length, 16.00-19.00; wing, 12.90-13.00; 

 tarsus, 2.00; middle toe and claw, 1.50; bill, about 1.75, the tip 

 elongated and decurved, so that the point comes nearly or quite 



Fig. 76. — Bill of Laughing Gull, nat. size. 



down to the level of the small acute prominence of the gonys. 

 Mantle grayish-plumbeous; hood dark plumbeous; eyelids white; 

 black on primaries taking in nearly all the first quill, but rapidly 

 decreasing to the sixth ; the white tips very small, few, or want- 

 ing ; bill and feet dusky carmine. In winter, not rosy, and un- 

 hooded ; head white, with dusky or grayish patches on the nape 

 and auriculars. Young: quite brown, paler, grayish or whitish 

 below and on the upper tail-coverts ; feathers of the back dark 

 with paler edges; quills and tail black, or latter white or partly 

 grayish-blue, with a black bar ; bill and feet dusky or brownish. 



Unlike all the foregoing, the present is a southern 

 species, and a summer resident only with us. It ap- 



