lo PACIFIC COAST AVIFAUNA [No. i. 



one. I found the kitti wakes' nests built in colonies, that is, there would be as 

 many as a dozen built close together, lined along a narrow ledge. 



Lams barroviamis Ridgw. 

 Point Barrow Gull. 

 This was the common large gull around Kotzebue Sound and up the Kowak 

 Valley. I saw it in the fall of '98 along the Hunt River, even well into the Jade 

 Mountains. Along such streams the gulls find a plentiful food supply in the 

 numerous dead salmon lodged on the sand-bars. From three to five gulls were 

 generally seen in a company, the majority in the dark, immature plumage. The 

 Point Barrow Gulls remained later in the fall than any other summer birds. They 

 did not finally leave until quite cold weather and the rivers had frozen over. The 

 last, an adult and an immature together, were seen flying south-west high over- 

 head on the 13th of October. They first appeared in the spring on the morning of 

 May nth, when I discovered ten sitting close together out in the middle of the river 

 ice. Winter was still unbroken at this date, and there was no open water in the 

 vicinity that 1 knew of. F'or the next week or ten days, until the ice began to melt 

 and the snow to leave the river banks, the gulls and other early arrivals among the 

 water-birds must have had a pretty slim diet. Point Barrow Gulls were nesting in 

 moderate numbers around Chamisso Island where Mr. Rivers took fresh eggs on 

 an outlying rock on June 6th. The eskimo, however, brought in eggs as early as 

 May 26th. This gull also nested throughout the Kowak Valley, but I failed to 

 find any eggs. 



Lams glaucescens Naum. 



Glaucous-winged Gull. 

 This was not nearly so common as the Point Barrow Gull. In fact I only 

 positively identified it once: a freshly-killed specimen brought to me on May nth, 

 the first day in the spring that anj^ gulls appeared. I thought I recognized this 

 species flying overhead along the river several times during the succeeding two 

 weeks. 



Lanes brachyrhynchiis Rich. 



Short-billed Gull. 

 The Short-billed Gull was a numerous species from Cape Blossom eastward 

 through the Kowak Valley. Many dark-plumaged young were seen along the 

 lower course of the Kowak, August 12 to 17, '98, usually two together at the point 

 of a sand-bar, as yet obviously depending on their parents for food, for at the 

 approach of the latter the juveniles would set up a querulous squealing. I did 

 not see any of these gulls later than the last week in August. As soon as the 

 young were able to fly, all apparently left. In the spring of '99, the first of this 

 species to appear, were noted on the 15th of May and by the 19th they were 

 numerous and a pair or more were to be found at nearly every large lake Their 

 usual notes are louder and sharper than those of the Glaucous Gulls, and remind 

 one of the bark of a terrier. Two specimens, males, secured on the 19th and com- 

 pared soon after death with the plates in Ridgway's "Nomenclature of Colors," 

 agreed in having the bill uniform gall-stone yellow, throughout; the interior of the 



