48 BIRDS OF ONTARIO. 



in the first weel<: in June, found the entire island covered with eggs 

 of gulls and terns. He says : " I don't suppose you could lay down a 

 two-feet rule without each end of it touching a nest. The terns and 

 gulls were here breeding side by side. Most of the gulls' nests were 

 in the grass, those of the tern in the sand. I did not find a gull's 

 nest with more than three eggs, and very few with two ; whereas 

 several hollows had as many as eighteen terns' eggs in them, which 

 had rolled together." 



Mr. Frazer also found the Ring-billed Gulls breeding in Labrador, 

 and he remarked that the number of eggs did not exceed four. 



Macoun reports it breeding in all the lakes of any size in the 

 North-West. 



LARUS ATRICILLA Linn. 

 20. Laughing- Gull. (5S) 



Adult, in summer: — Bill and edges of eyelids, deep carmine; legs and feet, 

 dusky red ; iris, blackish. Hood, deep phimbeous, grayish-black, extending 

 farther on the throat than on the nape. Eyelids, white, posteriorly. Neck all 

 round, rump, tail, broad tips of secondaries and tertials, and whole under parts 

 white, the latter with a rosy tinge which fades after death. Mantle, grayish 

 plumbeous ; outer six primaries, black, their extreme tips white ; their bases for 

 a short distance on the first, and only on the inner web, and for a successively 

 increasing distance on both webs of the others, of the color of the back. 



Hab. — Tropical and warm temperate America, chiefly along the sea coast, 

 from Maine to Brazil. 



Nest, in a tussock of grass, the cavity nicely lined with fine dry grasses. 



Eggs, three to five, bluish white, spotted and blotched with brown, umbei- 

 and lilac of various shades. 



In the report of the proceedings of the Ornithological 8ub-sectiou 

 of the Canadian Lastitute for 1890-91, occurs the following: 



" On May 23rd, 1890, a gull was brought to my store. It had 

 been shot on Toronto Island, and, being unlike any of our native 

 species, I had it thoroughly examined, and it proved to be a male 

 Laughing Gull (Larus atricilla). This is, I believe, the first i-ecord of 

 this bird for Ontario." — William Cross. 



The Laughing Gull is a southern bird, whose centre of abundance 

 is along the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. It is also common in the 

 South Atlantic and Gulf States, and is found breeding as far north 

 as the coast of New England, but this, so far as I know, is the first 

 record of its occurrence in Ontario. Speaking of this species, Mr. 



