CATALOGUE OF CANADIAN BIRDS. 39 
5la. American Herring Gull. 
Larus argentatus smithsonianus Cours. 1873. 
This species is the most widely diffused of all our gulls and is 
as much at home breeding in the far inland lakes as along the 
coast of the Atlantic, around Hudson Bay, along the shores of 
the Arctic seas or on the Upper Yukon. 
We have records of its breeding in Newfoundland, Labrador, 
Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, 
throughout the whole prairie region and north to Hudson Bay and 
the Arctic sea, and across the Rocky Mountains to the Upper 
Yukon, where Dall found it breeding in numbers. Fannin 
reports it breeding on the coast of British Columbia and also in 
the interior. 
BREEDING Notes.—Breeding in large numbers on an island in 
Crane Lake, Assa., between June gth-18th, 1894. Nest, a shal- 
low hole in the ground lined with dry grass and weeds. Eggs, 
three as a rule; never more. A number of the young were 
hatched by June gth, but the greater number about the 18th, 
when many young were running about the island, and some took 
to the water and swam away. (JJacoun.) 
The men on Crane Lake Farm said that the old birds killed 
gophers (Spermophilus Richardson) and fed them to their young. 
(Spreadborough.) This species breeds in numbers at Buffalo Lake, 
Alberta. (Dzppfie.) 
I found this species breeding abundantly at Shoal Lake, Mani- 
toba, on June 18th, 1894. The nests were built on the ground on 
the islands, were composed of weeds, and contained three eggs 
each. (Raine.) 
The American Herring Gull is a common species along the 
St. Lawrence. A few years ago it used to breed on Pigeon Island 
and the Lower Ducks, Lake Ontario, but owing to constant dis- 
turbance it no longer breeds in those places, and I doubt if any 
now nest around Lake Ontario. It is still plentiful in the neigh- 
bourhood of Parry Sound, Lake Huron, and on other lakes in 
Northern Ontario. (Rev. C.J. Young.) 
This gull breeds on the small islands off the coast of Bruce 
Co., Ont., in the Georgian Bay and off Manitoulin Island. Nest 
in a dry situation. The fishermen take the eggs for food in con- 
siderable quantities. I have one egg taken by them which is of 
