254 LAUGHING GULL. 



a dirty, dark, purplish brown. Others have not the white spots 

 above and below the eyes; these are young birds. 



The changes of plumage, to which birds of this genus are 

 subject, have tended not a little to confound the naturalist; and 

 a considerable collision of opinion, arising from an imperfect 

 acquaintance with the living subjects, has been the result. To 

 investigate thoroughly their history, it is obviously necessary 

 that the ornithologist should frequently explore their native 

 haunts; and to determine the species of periodical or occasional 

 visiters, an accurate comparative examination of many speci- 

 mens, either alive, or recently killed, is indispensable. Less 

 confusion would arise among authors, if they would occasion- 

 ally abandon their accustomed walks their studies and their 

 museums, and seek correct knowledge in the only place where 

 it is to be obtained in the grand Temple of Nature. As it 

 respects, in particular, the tribe under review, the zealous in- 

 quirer would find himself amply compensated for all his toil, 

 by observing these neat and clean birds coursing along the 

 rivers and coast, enlivening the prospect by their airy move- 

 ments: now skimming closely over the watery element, watch- 

 ing the motions of the surges, and now rising into the higher 

 regions, sporting with the winds; while he inhaled the invigo- 

 rating breezes of the ocean, and listened to the soothing mur- 

 murs of its billows. 



The Laughing Gull, known in America by the name of the 

 Black-headed Gull, is one of the most beautiful and most sociable 

 of its genus. They make their appearance, on the coast oT New 

 Jersey, in the latter part of April; and do not fail to give notice 

 of their arrival, by their familiarity and loquacity. The inhabi- 

 tants treat them with the same indifference that they manifest 

 towards all those harmless birds, which do not minister either 

 to their appetite or their avarice; and hence the Black-heads 

 may be seen in companies around the farm-house; coursing along 

 the river shores, gleaning up the refuse of the fishermen, and 

 the animal substances left by the tide; or scattered over the 

 marshes, and newly-ploughed fields, regaling on the worms, 



