42 Strong, Habits of the Herring Gull. [jan! 



recently hatched birds were observed enjoying the shade of one of 

 their parents when the sun was intense as has already been stated 

 in this paper. They also used drift wood or anything else offering 

 shade. The more developed juvenals, especially on warm days, 

 did a large amount of bathing at the water's edge. Still older 

 young would swim further out from shore in bathing. When the 

 definitive feathers are developing and begin to burst from their 

 sheaths, much time is spent in dressing the plumage with the beak. 

 Whether the opening of the feathers is facilitated by the feather 

 manipulation could not be determined. 



6. Development of bird after hatching. — A detailed account of 

 the hatching and early development of the young after hatching 

 has been given by Dutcher and Baily.^ 



Growth is rapid but the young are in the down plumage for a 

 number of days after hatching. It is not in the province of this 

 paper to give a detailed description of the plumage, and the reader 

 is referred to the account given by Dutcher and Baily^ (p. 422 

 with Plate XXII). The sequence of plumages has been described 

 by Dwight.^ The dark plumage of the juvenal gull is replaced 

 after the first winter by a lighter and less mottled plumage with 

 quite a bit of individual variation in the rate of change, judging 

 from my captive gulls. At two years, my gulls had lost most of 

 their juvenal coloration. Strange to say the wild gull obtained in 

 the winter of what must have been its second year, was somewhat 

 behind the others when they were two years old. None of my gulls 

 had acquired at two years as advanced a plumage as that described 

 by Dwight for Herring Gulls of that age. Sharpe * describes 

 progressive changes extending through the first five autumns, and 

 he says that the "quills" have more dark coloring at the fifth 

 autumn than appears in older birds. The following quotation 

 from Townsend's account of the Herring Gull agrees well with my 

 observations. "It is superficially evident from the large number 

 of dark and mottled birds at all seasons, that it takes several years 



lop. cit., pp. 421-2. 



« op. cit., p. 422. 



' Dwight, J. The Sequence of Plumages of the Laridae (Gulls and Terns). 

 Auk, 1901, Vol. XVIII, No. 1, pp. 49-63. 



* Sharpe, R. B. Catalogue of Birds in the British Museum. Vol. XXV, 1896, 

 p. 264. 



