506 NATATORES. LARUS. GULL. 



When arrived at maturity, which is not till after the third 

 year, the cry of the Herring Gull, particularly during the 

 breeding season, is very loud and piercing, and very unlike 

 that of L.fuscus ; is readily uttered upon any alarm, and 

 promptly attended to as a signal by all other birds within 

 hearing. If taken when young, or even afterwards, it soon 

 becomes reconciled to confinement, and will grow tame ; in 

 which state it can accommodate itself to a diet of worms, 

 raw flesh, or any other animal matter. It is numerously 

 scattered throughout a great part of Europe, especially on 

 the coasts of our own island, Holland, and France ; but in 

 the high northern latitudes is of rarer occurrence than many 

 of the other Gulls. 



PLATE 96*. represents this species of the natural size, and 



in the summer plumage. 



General Bill, from the division of the feathers on the forehead to 

 descnp. ^ ^^ twQ i ncnes an( j one-eighth long ; colour ochre- 



Adult bird. yellow. The angle of the lower mandible orange-red. 

 Orbits of the eyes orange. Head, neck, whole of under 

 plumage, tail, and ridge of each wing, pure white. The 

 six greater quills crossed by a black bar, which in the 

 first occupies three-fourths of the quill, but becomes ra- 

 pidly narrower through the rest, and is scarcely an inch 

 broad upon the sixth. First quill having a white tip 

 (for two inches in some specimens), marked with a small 

 black spot on each web near the extreme point ; the 

 second with two spots on each side of the shaft, its tips 

 and those of the next four quills being white* Tertials 

 and secondaries tipped with white. Irides pale gam- 

 boge-yellow. Legs and feet pale ash-grey, tinged with 

 flesh-red. Tarsus about two inches and a-half in length. 



PLATE 96. represents the immature Bird. 



Young. Bill blackish-grey. Irides dark. Head, neck, and under 

 First year. plumage greyish-white, streaked and marbled with pale 



