I20 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



are darker colored and marked with brownish even in Pagophila alba 

 requiring two or three years to reach mature plumage. The sexes are alike 

 in color, but the males are slightly larger. In the breeding season the bill, 

 mouth, eyelids and feet, one or more, are ornamented with brilliant shades 

 of red or yellow ; several species have a delicate salmon-pink suffusion of the 

 breast plumage; the terns have a black cap, and a group of smaller gulls 

 a black hood. Most gulls and terns are maritime birds, rarely traveling 

 inland except on the larger streams and lakes. They are almost constantly 

 on the wing searching for the fish, other marine animals and refuse, which 

 constitute their food. The voice is harsh and shrill in the smaller species, 

 but hoarse in the larger ones, inseparably associated with lapping waves or 

 pounding surf, while their graceful forms following the ship are usually 

 the first indication to the voyager that he is approaching land, though it 

 be hundreds of miles away. Gulls and terns nest in colonies on rocks, 

 or sandy beach, or the drift of inland lakes, or sometimes even in trees. 

 The eggs are two to three in number, rarely four, of some olive, greenish, 

 or buffy shade, spotted with brown or black. The young stay in the nest 

 and are fed by their parents, i.e. they are nidicolous and altricial, but they 

 are covered with down and some species which nest on the beach often 

 move about when a few days old, thus showing an approach to the praecocial 

 type. 



Pagophila alba (Gunnerus) 

 Ivory Gull 



Plate 6 



Larus albus Gunnerus. Leem's Beskr. Finm. Lapp. 1767. p. 285 

 Gavia alba A. 0. U. Check List. Ed. 2. 1895. No. 39 



pagoph'ila, Gr. jrdyos, ice, (^tXos, loving; al'ha, Lat., white 



Description. Adult: Pure white, shafts of the primaries yellow; bill 

 yellowish; feet black; iris brown; eyelids red. Young: Upper parts, tips 

 of the wings and tail feathers with dusky spots. 



Length 15-19. 5 inches; average 17; extent 41; wing 13.25; tail 5.5; 

 culmen 1.4; gape 2.1; depth of bill at nostril .45; tarsus 1.45; middle toe 

 and claw 1.75. 



This is an arctic species, very rarely entering the United States. The 

 only specimen from New York is recorded by Dutcher in the Auk, volume 

 12, page 290. It was shot on Great South bay, near Sayville, L. I., by John 

 Goldswerth, January 5, 1893. ^^^ Helme writes that he once saw a single 

 bird of this species flying about Mt Sinai Harbor, Suffolk county, N. Y. 



