LARUS. 97 



This small gull is often abundant about Manila Bay but does not 

 remain throughout the year. 



87. LARUS VEG/E (Palmen). 

 VEGA GULL. 



Larus argentatus var. vegw PALMEN, Vega Exped., Vetensk (1887), 5, 370. 



Laws vegaz SAUNDERS, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. (1896), 25, 269; SHARPE, 

 Hand-List (1899), 1, 141; HARTLAUB, Abhandl. Natur. Ver. Bremen 

 (1899), 16, heft. 2, 270; MCGREGOR and WORCESTER, Hand-List (1906), 

 21. 



Luzon (Schmacker). Bering Sea and Arctic Siberia; Chinese coasts, Japan, 

 Formosa, and Bonin Islands in winter. 



Adult male in breeding plumage. Head, neck, tail, and under parts 

 white; mantle and wing surface french-gray, with broad white tips to 

 the scapulars and secondaries, making a conspicuous alar bar; all the 

 primaries tipped with white ; outermost quill blackish from the base 

 downward (save a narrow gray wedge on inner web), with a white tip 

 63 mm. in length in mature birds, and a narrow, black bar which 

 divides the white into tip and "mirror" in the majority; second quill 

 blackish for about 10 mm. on both sides of shaft, with a black sub- 

 terminal bar, a white mirror, and, on the inner web, a broad, gray wedge 

 which sometimes breaks through and joins the mirror; third quill gray- 

 ish basally, blackish on the lower part of outer -web and on the sub- 

 terminal bar, gray on the inner web, passing into white at the apex of 

 the wedge; fourth similar but gray on both webs above the bar; fifth 

 quill similar but bar narrower; sixth gray, without a bar in mature 

 birds and with a narrow bar in others; the remaining quills gray with 

 white tips. In less mature birds there is no mirror on the second quill. 

 Ring around e3 r e and gape bright orange-red; tarsi and toes pale flesh- 

 color. Length, about 610; wing, 457; tail, 197; culmen, 74; tarsus, 70; 

 middle toe with claw, 66. 



The female is smaller and less robust. 



Adult in winter. Similar but head and neck streaked with ash-brown. 



Immature and young. In the first autumn the upper parts are streaked 

 and mottled with brown and grayish buff; quills dark umber, with paler 

 inner webs and whitish tips to most; rectrices similar, but more or less 

 mottled with whitish at bases of two or three outer pairs; feathers of 

 upper tail-coverts brown, with buffish white tips; under parts nearly 

 uniform brown at first, but afterwards brownish gray, mottled; bill 

 blackish, paler at base of lower mandible. The second autumn the 

 head is nearly white, streaked with grayish brown; the upper parts are 

 barred with brown on a grayish ground, though no pure gray feathers 

 have yet made their appearance on mantle ; quills paler ; tail more mottled 

 with white at the bases of all the feathers. In the third autumn the 

 feathers of the mantle are chiefly gray, with some brownish streaks 

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