LARID®, GULLS. —GEN. 281-5. 315 
Short-billed Hittiwake. Red-legged Hittiwake. Bill very short, stout, 
wide and deep at the base, with very convex culmen; its color clear yellow; 
feet coral-red, drying yellow; tarsus only about two-thirds as long as the 
middle toe and claw; hind toe very small (little if any larger than in an 
Atlantic kittiwake, smaller than in the best marked var. kotzebu?), its rudi- 
mentary claw showing as a little black speck. I do not know the young 
bird, in which the color of the bill and’ feet is probably materially different. 
Adult with the mantle leaden-gray, much darker than in the common kitti- 
wake ; pattern of the primaries essentially the same as in that species. Wing 
13; bill 14-14, its depth at base $, at angle little less; tarsus 14; middle 
toe and claw nearly 2. North Pacific Coast, abundant. This is unques- 
tionably a different bird from the foregoing, and in adult plumage it would 
seem impossible to mistake it. Here belong the following names : — 
Rissa brevirostris Branprt; Lawe. in Bp., 855; Datu and Bann., Trans. 
Chicago Acad. i, 305 (breeding by thousands about St. George’s, Alaska) ; 
Larus brachyrhynchus Gouup, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1843, p. , and Zool. Voy. 
Sulphur, 50, pl. 34; Lissa brachyrhyncha Bonar., Consp. Ay. ii, 226; 
Cours, Proc. Phila. Acad. 1862, 306; R. brevirostris and R. nivea Lawre. in 
Bp., 855; £2. nivea Exxior, pl. 54 (not Larus niveus PALu.). BREVIROSTRIS. 
B. Species of medium to smallest 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. (Chroecocephalus.) 
Black-headed, or Laughing Gull. Tarsus one-fourth longer than middle 
toe and claw. Large; 16-19; wing 12-13; tarsus 2; middle toe and claw 
14; bill about 13, the tip elongated and decurved, so that the point comes 
down nearly or quite to the level of the 
small, acute prominence of the gonys. 
Mantle grayish-plumbeous; hood dark 
plumbeous; eyelids white; black on y 
primaries taking in nearly all the Ist 4 
quill, but rapidly decreasing to the 6th; 
the white tips very small, few, or want- 
ing; bill and feet dusky carmine. In Fic. 200. Bill of Black-headed Gull. 
winter : not rosy, and unhooded ; 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. United States, chiefly coast- 
wise, breeding northward to Bay of Fundy (Boardman), but more abund- 
antly southward; extremely numerous along the South Atlantic coast. 
New Mexico and Arizona (Coues); Pacific Coast (Xantus). Larus 
ridibundus Wits., ix, 89, pl. 74, f. 4; Z. atricilla Nurr., ii, 291; Aup., 
vii, 136, pl. 443; Lawr. in Bp., 850. . . . . . ATRICILLA. 
Franklin's Rosy Gull. hs about equal ts the fiddle toe and claw. 
Medium; 14-16; wing about 11; bill 14-14; tarsus 13; bill and feet 
