740 THE SABINE GULL 
When the Bonapartes return, however, reaching, as they do, our northern 
borders late in July, they are doffing their black head gear, and they soon look 
as babyish and innocent as ever. 
Birds of this species have no liking for the steerage fare afforded by the 
cities, but they gather extensively upon the tide-flats, where they pursue 
marine worms and tiny crustaceans. They are not less fond of kelp beds or 
open water, and they have an especial liking for tide channels, where there is 
great bustle of fishy traffic, and where a fellow can catch a ride now and then 
on a floating soap-box—outbound or inbound, it matters not. 
Now a brother sights a school of herring and sets up a joyful yelp. 
Instantly every “pigeon” within hearing joins him, and scores come hurrying 
up from unseen distances, till the water is white with them. The discreet 
fishlets have gone below, and the gulls are left to spin about on the surface 
looking foolish, or to gabble amicably with their similarly duped neighbors. 
After all nothing matters in good society. 
Suckley noted these gulls as common about the mouth of the Nisqually 
River, and presumed that they bred there; but this is doubtful. They are 
said to nest abundantly in the interior of British Columbia, and they also 
winter to some extent on the shores of that Province. Parties of them are 
occasionally to be met with on Puget Sound and Gray’s Harbor in the rainy 
season but the great majority go further south. 
No. 290. 
SABINE’S GULL. 
A. O. U. No. 62. Xema sabinii (Sab.). 
Synonym.—Fork-TAILED GULL. 
Description.—dult in summer: Head and upper neck all around plum- 
beous-slate, bordered posteriorly with black; mantle dark pearl-gray; primaries 
black, the inner ones changing to white marked with plumbeous, the first five 
with white tips and white on the inner webs; remaining plumage, including 
slightly forked tail, white; bill black, tipped with yellow; legs and feet black; 
eyelids orange. Adult in winter: Similar, but slaty color of head and neck 
reduced to ear-coverts and nuchal region; rest of head and neck white. Young: 
Above, including most of head and mantle, grayish brown, each feather darken- 
ing distally and tipped with buffy; tail white with a broad blackish subterminal 
band; forehead, lores, upper tail-coverts, and underparts white. Emargination 
of tail about 1.25; that of young not much less (Coues). Length 13.00-14.00 
(330.2-355.6); wing 10.50 (266.7); tail 4.75 (120.6); bill 1.00 (25.4); tarsus 
1.25 (31.8). 
