388 ' The Plover-like Birds 



be reached unless a person is lowered down to it by means of a rope passed over 

 the cliff. The eggs are two, rarely three, in number. 



Typical Gulls. In the typical Gulls (Larus) the hind toe is perfectly devel- 

 oped though small, and the tail is even, but in "size, color, and all other char- 

 acters they are extremely variable," especially when in immature plumage, it 

 being in fact almost impossible to separate the young by obvious distinctive 

 characters. Of the forty-five forms, over twenty occur regularly or accidentally 

 in North America, the entire number falling into two groups, in the first of which 

 the head of the adult is white in summer, while in the second the head is mainly 

 black at this season. Without attempting to enumerate all, as examples of the 

 white-headed group mention may be made of the large Glaucous Gull (L. glaucus) 

 of the Arctic seas and the coasts of the North Atlantic, which reaches a length 

 of twenty-six to thirty-two inches, its place in Bering Sea and adjacent waters 

 being taken by the Point Barrow Gull (L. barrovianus}, which is from twenty- 

 five to twenty-eight inches long. Hardly to be distinguished from the last two 

 in plumage, but smaller and with a comparatively longer wing is the Iceland 

 Gull (L. leucopterus) of the North Atlantic, and with the same character of plu- 

 mage, but with the primaries white at the tips and with gray subterminal spaces, 

 are two North Pacific species, Kumlien's Gull (L. kumlieni} and Nelson's Gull 

 (L. nelsoni), which differ mainly in the length of the wing and bill. Mention 

 must be made of the Herring Gulls, the typical form of which (L. argentatus) 

 occurs in northern Europe and in eastern North America, and may be known by 

 its yellow bill, flesh-colored legs and feet, and black outer primaries. It is one of 

 the most abundant species along the English coasts throughout the year, where it 

 follows shoals of herrings or feeds upon garbage and marine animals as well as 

 carrion. It nests in a variety of places, such as flat islands and precipitous rocky 

 shores, making usually a bulky nest of seaweeds and other plants, and lined 

 with dry grass. On the American coasts it is the commonest and most abundant 

 Gull in winter in the Eastern and Southern States, where it frequents the rivers 

 and harbors to feed, unmindful of the presence of man, upon the scraps and gar- 

 bage so abundantly floating there. It breeds from Maine northward, Mr. Ken- 

 nicott having found its nests in great numbers on an island in the Great Slave 

 Lake, where they were placed on the ground, usually under bushes and quite 

 carefully constructed of sticks, leaves, and feathers. On the islands in the Bay 

 of Fundy, Dr. Brewer found the Herring Gulls nesting on the ground, and also 

 on high inaccessible cliffs as well as in very tall spruce trees, the latter habit 

 acquired, it was told him, after repeated depredations by man. With the plumage 

 much as in the Herring Gull, but distinguished by its smaller size and a black 

 band near the tip of the bill, is the Ring-billed Gull (L. delawarensis), which in- 

 habits the whole of North America, but is more abundant in the interior, nesting 

 from Newfoundland and Minnesota northward. 



Coming now to those species in which the head is uniform black or dusky in 

 summer and the breeding plumage more or less rose-tinted, mention must first 

 be made of the Black-headed or Laughing Gull (L. atricilla) of the Atlantic 

 coast of the United States in summer and south as far as the lower Amazon in 



