172 BULLETIN" 15 5, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



comes frequently from behind the fences or walls surrounding the 

 better homes in small towns. Popular superstition relates that the 

 bucaro calls at the change of each hour so that the birds are reputed 

 to be time keepers. They are among the most interesting of the 

 island's species. Two of these birds were exhibited in the Zoological 

 Gardens in Cincinnati, Ohio, as early as 1884. 



The bucaro in body is as large as a small crow with long legs and 

 very short toes (which are three in number), and fairly long neck, 

 which is usually disguised as the bird habitually stands with the 

 head drawn in on the shoulders. Above it is dusky streaked with 

 buff, with a black mark above the eye and a light mark through it. 

 The breast and foreneck are grayish white with dusky streaks, and 

 the rest of the underparts are dirty white. Abbott describes the 

 large, expressive eye as yellow, and the tarsi as greenish slate. 



Suborder Lari 



Family LARIDAE 

 Subfamily Larinae 



LARUS ARGENTATUS SMITHSONIANUS Coues 



HERRING GULL 



Larus Smithsonianus Coues, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, 1862, p. 296 

 (East and West Coasts of North America). 



Accidental. 



The only record for this species is that of a water color sketch of 

 an adult herring gull in a bound book of drawings made by M. de 

 Rabie in Haiti in the latter part of the eighteenth century, this 

 volume having been examined through the courtesy of Messrs. 

 Wheldon and Wesley. Drawing no. 37, marked " La Mauve " depicts 

 an adult herring gull in lifelike attitude, according to the inscrip- 

 tion on the back of the plate in the handwriting of the artist, " au 2/3 

 de grandeur naturelle " made " au Cap le 7 juillet 1775." The 

 locality au Cap refers to Cap-Hai'tien. 



The herring gull is a species of North America that comes south 

 casually to Cuba but is very rare south of Florida. The sketch is 

 identified as the American form on the basis of probability. 



The herring gull with a wing from 401 to 419 mm. long is so 

 much larger that the laughing gull, the only other species found in 

 Hispaniola, that it may be told with ease. The adult has the head 

 and underparts pure white, and the back and upper surface of the 

 wings gray. The ends of the primaries are black tipped with white. 

 Young birds are grayish brown mottled with whitish, becoming 

 lighter with age until they assume adult plumage. 



