Gulls 389 



winter. Between fifteen and seventeen inches in length, it has the head sooty 

 slate-color, the mantle slaty gray, and the remainder of the plumage pure white, 

 except that the five outer primaries are entirely black. The name of Laughing 

 Gull is derived from its peculiar note, which is said to resemble " in the most 

 striking manner a loud burst of derisive laughter, and its cries of deep distress 

 strongly resemble shouts of laughter, and seem expressive of sentiments quite 

 unlike what they are intended to convey." It is found nesting from Texas and 

 Florida to Maine, building a compact nest of seaweeds and grasses on the ground 

 in marshes. In the interior of North America occurs the allied but smaller 

 Franklin's Rosy Gull (L. franklinii} and the Bonaparte's Gull (L. Philadelphia), 

 which ranges throughout the whole of North America, but breeds only or mainly 

 far northward. The Little Gull (L. minutus), of which mention has already been 

 made as being the smallest species, also falls within the group of black-headed 

 forms. In summer the head is deep black and the mantle pearl-gray, while in 

 winter the head is white. One of the most abundant and familiar species about 

 the English coasts is the Lesser Black-backed Gull (L. fuscus), known by the 

 black or slate-gray mantle and otherwise white plumage, which in point of abun- 

 dance is nearly or quite equaled by the Black-headed Gull (L. ridibundus), which 

 is distinguished by its much smaller size, blackish head, neck, and mantle, and 

 red instead of yellow bill. 



Rosy Gull. As the sole representative of its genus, the beautiful Ross's 

 Rosy Gull, or Wedge-tailed Gull (Rhodostethia rosea), is distinguished from the 

 typical Gulls by its graduated tail and relatively shorter culmen. This handsome 

 bird has the mantle uniform pearl-gray with the remainder of the plumage white, 

 usually tinged with delicate, peach-blossom pink, while in summer the middle of 

 the neck is encircled by a narrow black collar which entirely disappears in winter. 

 It requires several years, it is said, for the birds to reach the full plumage. Their 

 home is in the high north, and even in winter they come south only to the northern 

 border of Alaska, Kamchatka, and Bering Sea. Their nesting places were 

 unknown until 1905, when Mr. S. A. Buturlin found them breeding in the Kolyma 

 Delta, in northeastern Siberia. They nest on bogs or grassy places in small 

 colonies of from two or three to ten or fifteen pairs, constructing a shallowly 

 cup-shaped nest of grasses and laying two or three handsome eggs of a rich olive- 

 green, spotted with chocolate-brown. 



Swallow-tailed Gulls. The last members of the subfamily to be noticed 

 are the Swallow-tailed or Forked-tailed Gulls, the two species of which are known 

 at once by their deeply forked tails, in which feature they approach the Terns. 

 The smaller, known as Sabine'sGull (Xema sabinii), is only thirteen or fourteen 

 inches long, and has the head and neck uniform lead-colored, the mantle bluish 

 gray, while the remainder of the plumage with the exception of a black collar 

 is pure white. It is a native of Arctic America and eastern Siberia, coming 

 south in winter to Peru and the Great Lakes in the interior of North America. 

 It breeds on the tundras of Siberia, on islands in the Arctic Ocean, and at various 

 points in Alaska, making a grass-lined nest in depressions in the moss. 



The Swallow-tailed Gull (Creagrus furcatus}, sometimes placed in the last- 



