C. ATRICILLA : BLACK-HEADED GULL. 351 



the Gannets, as well as along the Labrador coast ; and 

 a few also breed on the coast of Maine and in the Bay 

 of Fundy. 



BLACK-HEADED OR LAUGHING GULL. 

 CHROICOCEPHALUS ATRICILLA (L.) Lawr 



Chars. A species of medium size, of less robust form and slenderer 

 bill than most of the foregoing. In the breeding season the 

 white of the under parts rosy-tinted, and the head enveloped 

 in a dark-colored hood. Length, 16.00-19.00; wing, 12.00-13.00; 

 tarsus, 2.00; middle toe and claw, 1.50; bill, about 1.75, the tip 

 elongated and decurved, so that the point comes nearly or quite 



FIG. 76. BILL OF LAUGHING GULL, NAT. SIZE. 



down to the level of the small acute prominence of the gonys. 

 Mantle grayish-plumbeous; hood dark plumbeous ; eyelids white; 

 black on primaries taking in nearly all the first quill, but rapidly 

 decreasing to the sixth ; the white tips very small, few, or want- 

 ing ; bill and feet dusky carmine. In winter, not rosy, and un- 

 hooded; head white, with dusky or grayish patches on the nape 

 and auriculars. Young : quite brown, paler, grayish or whitish 

 below and on the upper tail-coverts ; feathers of the back dark 

 with paler edges ; quills and tail black, or latter white or partly 

 grayish-blue, with a black bar ; bill and feet dusky or brownish. 



Unlike all the foregoing, the present is a southern 

 species, and a summer resident only with us. It ap- 



