16 NOTES ON THE 
different shades of brown, and obscure spots and blotches 
of lilac.” They measure usually about 2.20 by 1.60, but often 
somewhat less. 
SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 
Head, neck, entire under plumage, rump and tail, white; 
back and wings light bluish-gray; the ends of the five outer 
primaries, and the outer web of the first, black; fourth and 
fifth have small white tips; bill greenish-yellow; iris reddish- 
brown; legs and feet brownish-black, with a green tinge. 
Length, 17; wing, 12; tail, 6; bill, 1.50; tarsus, 1.25. 
Habitat, northern America. 
LARUS ARGENTATUS SMITHSONIANUS Coves. (51.) 
AMERICAN HERRING GULL. 
This beautiful Gull arrives in the lower part of the State 
about the first of April, and works its way northward so delib- 
erately as to make it not improbable that individuals may be 
seen almost any spring as late as the 10th of May. None 
remain in the middle and southern parts of the State through 
the summer, but there is scarcely a doubt left, in the absence 
of absolute certainty, that they breed at Mille Lacs lake, and 
other large northern lakes, within our boundary. Local obser- 
vers report several different kinds of Gulls breeding on the 
infrequented islands of those lakes, and Mr. Washburn found 
from their size abundant reason for believing them to be this 
species. In his visit to Otter Tail county in the latter part of 
October he found them at Dead lake in considerable numbers 
associated with other species of Gulls. ‘‘At Lake Mille Lacs,” 
he says ‘‘ after the wind has been blowing from the east a day 
or more, these Gulls and the two following species, viz.; L. 
delawarensis and L. philadelphia, are plenty along the west 
shore, flying up and down the beach, and occasionally alighting 
to pick up soft lacustrine molluscs washed ashore with the 
weed matter. About two miles from the southwestern shore 
of the lake lie three barren, rocky islands that are much fre- 
quented by Gulls in the breeding season. 
“The larger of the three, called Stone island, (Spirit island 
by the Indians) containing about three-fourths of an acre, and 
with its top about 20 feet above the surface of the water, af- 
fords on its rocky surface a nesting place for hundreds of Gulls.” 
From about the 20th of September this species begins to ap- 
pear in the lakes in gradually increasing numbers, the last of 
