BONAPARTE’S GULL. 543 
Their color is an olivaceous-drab, sometimes a grayish- 
green. ‘This is covered, more or less thickly, with blotches 
and spots of different shades of brown and purple, and 
obscure markings of the same. 
Their dimensions vary from 2.28 by 1.65 inch to 2 by 1.50 
inch. Some specimens have numerous irregular streaks 
of umber-brown over the surface at the greater end, and 
others have large confluent blotches of the same color. 
CHROICOCEPHALUS PHILADELPHIA. — Lawrence. 
Bonaparte’s Gull, 
Larus Bonapartei, Nuttall. Man., II. (1834) 294. Aud. Birds Am., VII. (1844) 
131. 
DESCRIPTION. 
Adult. — Head and upper part of neck grayish-black, this color extending rather 
lower on the throat than on the neck behind; lower part of neck, under plumage, 
rump, and tail, white; back and wings clear bluish-gray; first primary black on the 
outer web; inner web of the first primary, both webs of the second, and the outer 
web of the third, white; the inner web of the third, and all the other primaries, are 
of the same color as the back; the six outer primaries have their ends black for the 
extent of about an inch on the central ones, but less on the first and sixth, — they 
are all slightly tipped with white; shoulders, anterior borders of the wings, and outer 
webs of the primary coverts white; bill deep black; inside of mouth carmine; iris 
hazel; legs and feet orange, with a reddish tinge. 
The young have the head white, intermixed on the occiput and hind neck with 
dark-gray; a round spot of dark-plumbeous behind the eye; the smaller wing 
coverts brown; the outer webs of several of the primaries, and a subterminal band 
on the tail, black. 
Length, fourteen and a half inches; wing, ten and a half; tail, four and a quar- 
ter; bill, one and one-eighth; tarsus, one and five-sixteenths inch. 
Hab. — Texas to Nova Scotia, Mississippi River, fur countries, Pacific coast of 
North America. 
This species is pretty common on our coast, and is often 
found in the neighborhood of large tracts of water in the 
interior. 
RISSA, Leacu. 
Rissa, LEACH, Steph. Gen. Zool., XIII. (1825) 180. (Type Laras tridactylus, L.) 
Bill rather long, strong, and much compressed; culmen straight at base, curved 
from the nostrils to the tip; nostrils lateral and longitudinal ; wings long and 
pointed; tail even; tarsi rather short; toes slender and united by a full web; hind 
toe rudimentary or very small. 
