640 NOTES ON SOME OF THE 



Connecticut. So far as I have been able to learn by careful 

 inquiry, this species is much less common in New England 

 than several authors represent. It seems to be but an acci- 

 dental or very rare visitor. 



AMERICAN WHITE PELICAN. Pelecanus erythrorhynchus 

 Gmelin. I learii from Mr. S. C. Martin that a flock of 

 thirteen individuals visited Nantucket Island during a heavy 

 storm a few years since. After being repeatedly fired at 

 one of them was finally killed, near Brant Point light-house. 

 Mr. C. J. Maynard also informs me that several were seen at 

 Ipswich at about the same time. The only other recent in- 

 stance of the capture of this species in New England seems 

 to be that at Calais, Maine, given by Mr. G. A. Boardman.* 

 It seems to be entirely accidental here now, although for- 

 merly, according to early writers, of not uufrequent occur- 

 rence. It still ranges, however, over the greater part of 

 the continent. 



HERRING GULL. Larus argentatus Briinn. Although 

 large numbers of this species spend the summer along the 

 Massachusetts coast, I have not been able to find any breed- 

 ing here. Those seen in summer are all immature birds, 

 generally in brown plumage. Although they once unques- 

 tionably bred on our coast, none now appear to rear their 

 young nearer than the northern part of the coast of Maine. 

 Hence the occurrence of large numbers of immature birds 

 in summer two hundred miles south of the nearest breeding 

 grounds of the species is a fact of considerable interest. 



Some years since Dr. Elliott Cones separated the Amer- 

 ican Herring Gull from the European, under the name of 

 Larus jSmithsonianus, he supposing it to differ in certain 

 points of coloration from the European bird.f Unfortu- 

 nately, these differences do not prove constant, specimens 

 identical in every particular with the typical European L. 

 argentatus of Coues occurring not unfrequently on the New 



* Proc. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist., Vol. ix, p. 130. 



t Revision of the Gulls of North America, etc., Proc. P. A. N. S., June, 1862, p. 296. 



