THE AUK: 



A QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF 

 ORNITHOLOGY. 



Vol. xxiii. April, 1906. No. 2. 



RANDOM NOTES ON PACIFIC COAST GULLS. 



BY A. W. ANTHONY. 



From the ice fields on the north, with the Sabine Gull and Red- 

 legged Kittiwake hovering over the open leads in the pack, to the 

 coast of Mexico, with Heermann's Gull as an ever present feature 

 of the sand beaches, no part of our Pacific coast but can offer gulls 

 in abundance. As yet undisturbed to any extent by the feather 

 hunters, they fairly swarm about the bays and beaches during the 

 winter months, and are but little less noticeable in summer when 

 the nesting birds have retired to the outlying islands, or followed 

 the flocks of geese and cranes to the far north. 



No family presents a more interesting study, none are more dainty 

 in plumage, but for some reason there still remains a great deal to be 

 published regarding the life histories of this group. As a rule the 

 species are not easy of identification, even with the bird in hand, a 

 difficulty still further increased when the tyro attempts to segregate 

 the species in a passing flock, presenting different plumages as well 

 as half a dozen or more species of similar size and general appear- 

 ance. Once having mastei'ed the few difficulties of identification 

 one detects certain characteristics of manner that render most of 

 the species separable with reasonable certainty, even before the 

 markings and other specific characters can be discerned. 



In nearly all of the species that have passed under my observa- 

 tion most -of these characteristics are of so subtle a nature that I 

 find it well-nigh impossible to define them to my own satisfaction, 

 much less to describe them. 



