782. 
783. 
784. 
748 SYSTEMATIC SYNOPSIS. —LONGIPENNES — GAVIZAE. 
gins. Hallux rudimentary or not well developed, the ungual phalanx being generally obsolete 
Pattern of primaries and livery of the young, peculiar. Nests on crags. 
Analysis of Species. 
Feet dark; bill clouded with olivaceous, about 1.50 long; wing 12.00. 
Hallux rudimentary, without aclaw-bearing phalanx ......... +... . .tridactyla 782 
Hallux better formed, bearing welawaeene +. |. os 6 ace em a) Neh ees kotzebuii 783 
Feet coral red (drying yellow); bill clear yellow, about 1.20; wing13.00 . . . ... . . brevirostris 784 
R. tridac/tyla. (Lat. tris, thrice; dactylus, digit.) Common Kirtrwaker. Hind toe only 
appearing as a minute knob, its claw abortive. Adult, breeding plumage: Bill light yellow, 
clouded with olivaceous. Head and neck all round, under parts and tail, pure white. Mantle 
rather dark bluish or cinereous-blue, the tertiaries and secondaries of the same color nearly to 
their tips, which are white. Primaries: the first very light bluish-white, without white apex, 
its outer web, and its inner web for about two inches from the tip, black ; second like the first, 
but without the black outer web, its tip being black for nearly the same distance as the first, 
its apex with a minute white spot; on the third and fourth the black tips grow shorter, while 
the apices are more broadly white; this lessening of the black on each feather is exactly pro- 
portional to the shortening of the successive quills, bringing the bases of all the black tips in 
the same straight line (a pattern peculiar to the species of Rissa). A sub-apieal black spot is 
usually present on one or both webs, but is sometimes absent. Legs and feet blackish. Iris 
reddish-brown; eye-ring red. Adult in winter: Occiput, nape behind, and sides of the breast, 
clouded with the color of the back, deepening into slate over the auriculars. A very small but 
well-defined black crescent before the eye. Otherwise as in summer. Young: Bill black; an 
ante-ocular crescent, and a post-ocular spot, dusky-slate. A broad transverse bar across the neck 
behind, the whole of the lesser and median wing-coverts, the bastard quills, the tertiaries, except 
at their edges, and a terminal bar on the tail, black. The outer four primaries with their outer 
webs, outer half of inner webs, and tips for some distance, black, the rest of the feathers pearly 
white. Tips only of the fifth and sixth black, their extreme apices with a white speck. Length 
16.00-18.00; extent 36.00; wing 12.25; bill above 1.40 to 1.50; along rictus 2.10; height 
at base 0.50; at angle 0.40; tarsus 1.30; middle toe and claw 1.80. Arctic America and 
Europe, chiefly coastwise, very abundant; breeds from New England northward; ranges in 
winter S. to the Middle States. Nests preferably not on the ground like most gulls, but on the 
ledges of rocks and cliffs overhanging the water, such as the guillemots Select; nest of sea- 
weeds, ete. Eggs like those of other gulls, 2.25 1.80. 
R. t. kotzebui/i. (To Otto von Kotzebue, the Russian navigator.) KorTzEBUE’s KirTTI- 
WAKE. It is a curious fact that the common kittiwake of the North Pacific usually has the 
hind toe better formed — sometimes nearly if not quite as long as in ordinary gulls, with a 
nearly or quite perfect, though small, claw. But I cannot predicate a specific character on this 
score, since the development of the toe is by insensible degrees. (See Cours, Proc. Phila. 
Acad., 1869, p. 207 (footnote) ; Birds N. W., 1874, p. 644.) N. Pacific coast, abundant. 
R. breviros'tris. (Lat. brevirostris, short-billed.) SHortT-BILLED KirrrwaAke. ReEp- 
LEGGED KirrrwakE. Adult, breeding plumage: Bill very short, stout, wide at the base, the 
upper mandible much curved, though not attenuated nor very acute. Convexity of culmen 
very great toward the tip; the culmen being, from the nostrils to the apex, almost the are of a 
circle, whose centre is the symphyseal eminence. Outline of rami of under mandible and gonys 
both somewhat concave; the eminentia symphysis but slightly developed. Tarsus very short, 
hardly more than two-thirds the middle toe and claw. Wings exceedingly long, reaching, 
when folded, far beyond the tail. Tail of moderate length, even. Bill a uniform clear light 
straw-yellow, with little or no tinge of olivaceous; iris hazel ; eye-ring red. Head and neck 
all round, under parts and tail, pure white. Mantle deep leaden or bluish-gray, much darker 
than in R. tridactyla ; the color on the wings extending to within half an inch of the apices of 
