LARUS. 97 
This small gull is often abundant about Manila Bay but does not 
remain throughout the year. 
87. LARUS VEG (Palmen). 
VEGA GULL. 
Larus argentatus var. vege PALMEN, Vega Exped., Vetensk (1887), 5, 370. 
Larus vege SAUNDERS, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. (1896), 25, 269; SHaRpPE, 
Hand-List (1899), 1, 141; Harrnaus, Abhandl. Natur. Ver. Bremen 
(1899), 16, heft. 2, 270; McGregor and WorceEstErR, Hand-List (1906), 
yi le 
Luzon (Schmacker). Bering Sea and Arctic Siberia; Chinese coasts, Japan, 
Formosa, and Bonin Jslands in winter. 
Adult male in breeding plumage.—Head, neck, tail, and under parts 
white; mantle and wing surface french-gray, with broad white tips to 
the scapulars and secondaries, making a conspicuous alar bar; all the 
primaries tipped with white; outermost quill blackish from the base 
downward (save a narrow gray wedge on inner web), with a white tip 
63 mm. in length in mature birds, and a narrow, black bar which 
divides the white into tip and “mirror” in the majority; second quill 
blackish for about 10 mm. on both sides of shaft, with a black sub- 
terminal bar, a white mirror, and, on the inner web, a broad, gray wedge 
which sometimes breaks through and joins the mirror; third quill gray- 
ish basally, blackish on the lower part of outer web and on the sub- 
terminal bar, gray on the inner web, passing into white at the apex of 
the wedge; fourth similar but gray on both webs above the bar; fifth 
quill similar but bar narrower; sixth gray, without a bar in mature 
birds and with a narrow bar in others; the remaining quills gray with 
white tips. In less mature birds there is no mirror on the second quill. 
Ring around eye and gape bright orange-red; tarsi and toes pale flesh- 
color. Length, about 610; wing, 457; tail, 197; culmen, 74; tarsus, 70; 
middle toe with claw, 66. 
The female is smaller and less robust. 
Adult in winter.—Similar but head and neck streaked with ash-brown. 
Immature and young.—In the first autumn the upper parts are streaked 
and mottled with brown and grayish buff; quills dark umber, with paler 
inner webs and whitish tips to most; rectrices similar, but more or less 
mottled with whitish at bases of two or three outer pairs; feathers of 
upper tail-coverts brown, with buffish white tips; under parts nearly 
uniform brown at first, but afterwards brownish gray, mottled; bill 
blackish, paler at base of lower mandible. The second autumn the 
head is nearly white, streaked with grayish brown; the upper parts are 
barred with brown on a grayish ground, though no pure gray feathers 
have yet made their appearance on mantle; quills paler; tail more mottled 
with white at the bases of all the feathers. In the third autumn the 
feathers of the mantle are chiefly gray, with some brownish streaks 
T7719——7 
