50 THE BIRDS OF MAINE 



The Gulls are most excellent swimmers, but their diving 

 seems to be confined to ducking their heads and the fore part 

 of their bodies under the surface, or occasionally plunging down 

 from the air with sufficient force to disappear under the sur- 

 face. One day, during the winter of 1906, I watched several 

 of these birds circling about the sluiceway at the Bangor dam. 

 They flew about the open water in circles, the upper range 

 of which was always near the mouth of the sluice, and as 

 their keen eyes detected some fish at this upper portion of 

 their range they plunged with force into the water, quickly 

 rising to the surface as a usual thing, though on at least one 

 occasion a bird was out of sight so long that I had grave fears 

 that it would be carried under the ice by the swift current, but 

 it finally emerged at the edge of the ice and took wing with 

 an unusually large tom-cod. Nearly every plunge seemed to 

 be successful, the birds usually swallowing the smaller fish 

 before taking wing, but when a large fish was captured they 

 would fly to the ice near by and after beating the fish from 

 side to side on the ice would finally swallow it. In spite of 

 the icy water and their frequent immersions, two or three of 

 the birds finally betook themselves to a quiet pool of water and 

 vigorously spattered the water with their feet and wings, and 

 engaged in preening their feathers and the usual accompani- 

 ments of bird washing. At night they roosted in some evergreen 

 trees not far away. Being unmolested these birds could be 

 watched from not more than twenty feet away. 



''^4. Larus delawarenis Ord. Ring-billed Gull. 

 Plumage in summer adults : bill yellowish with black band near tip ; wings 

 and back pearl gray ; at least the first five or six primaries more or less 

 white-tipped and with varying amounts of black toward the base ; rest of 

 plumage white. Winter adult plumage : differs in that the head and neck 

 have grayish streaks. Immature plumage : above brownish dusky, feathers 

 more or less (usually much) streaked and margined with grayish buff or 

 whitish ; outer primaries blackish ; below white, considerably streaked and 

 spotted with grayish ; tail gray to whitish, spotted with dark, and with wide 

 black band toward end ; bill black at end, base yellow. Wing 13.50 to 15.50 ; 

 culmen 1.60 ; tarsus 2.15. 



