226 Mackay on the Herring Gull. [J"'y 



In regard to their plumage I am inclined to the belief that it 

 requires three seasons before these birds acquire their full plum- 

 age, and my reason for so thinkimg is the apparently intermedi- 

 ate feathering wliich I have noticed. 



They make a note similar to cack^ cack^ cack^ quickly re- 

 peated, which is the alarm cry ; also a kind of cackle sometimes 

 repeated in a much higher key than at others. And when they 

 are collected in numbers together on the flats on a fine pleasant 

 day, it is extremely interesting to listen to their various notes, I 

 might almost say music. When squabbling for some floating 

 food they will also make considerable fuss and noise. 



A few adult American Herring Gulls remain during the sum- 

 mer frequenting the south side of Cape Cod, also at Wepecket 

 Islands, Buzzard's Bay, where on June 26, 1891, some thirty or 

 forty of these birds were noted. The only instance that has come 

 to my notice of this bird's breeding in Massachusetts occurred 

 during tlie summer of 1S8S when Mr. Vinal Edwards (in the 

 employ of the U. S. Fish Commission) of Wood's Holl, Massa- 

 chusetts was attracted by the continued presence of a pair of 

 Herring Gulls in the white plumage at the middle Wepecket 

 Island, Buzzard's P>ay (near Woods Holl). On landing to in- 

 vestigate, he found the usual well-constructed nest containing 

 downy young which could not have been more than two or three 

 days from the shell. 



That it is customary for some of our water birds to return to their 

 old haunts in New England waters has long been my belief, as I 

 have expressed in former articles. It is therefore with pleasure 

 that I narrate an instance of such rctuin by an American Herring 

 (tuH, for the facts concerning whicli my readers are indebted to 

 the politeness of Captain Edward Fogarty, master of the Brentor. 

 Reef Lightship, Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island, who has at my 

 request most kindly furnished me with a description of the Gull 

 and details of its sojourn in the vicinity of the Lightship for sa 

 long a period. As identiflcation and reliable data are not always 

 obtainable in such cases, I feel certain that the following narra- 

 tive will prove of considerable interest. Hearing that a certain 

 Gull had been in the habit of frequenting, and returning year 

 after year to the waters adjacent to Brcnton's Reef, Narragansett 

 Bay, and was known in consequence to the crew of the lightship 

 anchored in that locality, I entered into communication with 



