BIRDS OF INDIANA. 575 



14. (60.) Larus Philadelphia (ORD). 



Bonaparte's Gull. 



Adult in Summer. Size small; bill, black; mantle, pearly-blue; 

 hood, slaty plumbeous, with white touches on the eyelids; many wing 

 coverts white; feet chrome yellow, tinged with coral red, webs, ver- 

 milion; primaries, first five or six with the shafts white, except at tip; 

 first white, with outer web and extreme tip black; second white, more 

 broadly crossed with black; third to sixth or eighth, with the black 

 successively lessening. Adult in Winter. With no hood but a black 

 auricular spot. Immature. "Mottled and patched above with brown 

 or gray, and usually a dusky bar on the wing; the tail, with a black 

 bar; the primaries, with more black; the bill, dusky; much of the 

 lower mandible, flesh-colored or yellowish, as are the feet." 



Length, 12.00-14.00; wing, 9:50-10:50; bill, 1.12-1.25, very slender. 



RANGE. North America, from Bermudas to Hudson Bay, Labra- 

 dor, and Alaska. Breeds from northern United States northward- 

 Winters from Indiana and Illinois southward. 



Nest, in tree or bush, or on stump; of sticks and grass, lined with 

 soft material. Eggs, 3-4, grayish olive, tinged with greenish, and 

 spotted with brown, 1.97 by 1.40. 



Common migrant and rare winter visitor. Dr. J. L. Hancock in- 

 forms me that while visiting Wolf Lake, in May, 1882, he was given 

 a fresh specimen of a female of Bonaparte's Gull by a duck hunter, who 

 had shot it near by. At the same time he was handed two quite fresh 

 eggs, which were said to be those of the gull. The same day he saw an- 

 other specimen flying over the same site, which was presumed to be the 

 male. May 20, 1882, he saw three of these Gulls at different times 

 during the day, one of which was shot for identification. The bulk 

 of the species had gone further north to nest. It is best known as a 

 migrant. In the Whitewater Valley I have never found it earlier 

 than March 12. From that date until April 21 it may be looked for. 

 It is not so common in fall on its way southward. In the northern 

 part of the State, particularly in the vicinity of Lake Michigan, it is 

 more numerous. There they remain until May, then depart to return 

 again in October. They are reported to breed in the St. Clair Flats 

 (Collins' Bull. Nuttall Orn. Club, Vol. V, 1880, p. 62), and on some 

 of the islands of Saginaw Bay (Cook, Birds of Mich., p. 33), but I am 

 not aware that this has been verified. It breeds generally on all the 

 lakes of any size from the northern border of the United States, from 

 the Atlantic to the Pacific coasts, toward the Arctic Ocean. On the 



