VOl i9^? nI ] Dwight, The White-winged Gulls. 41 



or less eliminated, but the slaty or brown edgings of the first and 

 other primaries are always present. 



Mr. Brewster has been in doubt whether the name chalcopterus 

 might not be available for this species. The supposed type of 

 Lichtenstein's bird is in the Berlin Museum where, through the 

 courtesy of Dr. Anton Reichenow, I was permitted to examine it 

 only last summer. It is No. 13583, a bird in juvenal or first winter 

 plumage, darker than glaueescens ever is, and the primaries so 

 nearly black that it is evidently the young of some species that 

 has black primaries with white spots when adult, — possibly L. 

 califomicus. The dimensions best fit this species although the 

 locality given is " Polar-meer," but at all events it is neither leucop- 

 terus nor glaueescens. Nor does Bruch's description of chalcop- 

 terus fit kumlieni, for the primaries do not have "round white 

 terminal spots." Therefore Mr. Brewster was justified in giving 

 a new name to a new species so rare that in twenty-two years only 

 a like number of specimens have found their way into collections. 



It is rather odd that Larus leucopterus in adult plumage from 

 the Atlantic coast is almost unknown, the young birds being 

 rather common, while in the same region adult kumlieni has been 

 repeatedly captured and the young rarely. There is no doubt 

 that both species will be found to be more abundant when they 

 are diligently looked for. .My specimen from Tadousac, Que., 

 is I believe the first record of kumlieni for Quebec, and Mr. L. H. 

 Porter's the first for Connecticut. There is also an unrecorded 

 specimen, a young female taken at Plymouth, Mass., Jan. 5, 1888, 

 in the museum at Tring, but with these exceptions most of the 

 specimens are already on record. It may be well to note here 

 that the type, at one time mounted and exposed to the light, has 

 faded many shades lighter than are fresh birds. 



Larus nelsoni. Nelson's Gull. 



In 1884, Mr. H. W. Henshaw ventured to describe this species 

 on the strength of a single breeding male from Alaska (U. S. 

 Nat. Mus.'No. 97253, & St. Michaels, Alaska, June 20, 1880). 

 Since then a specimen from Bering Straits has turned up in the 



