General 
descrip- 
tion. 
Adult bird. 
Young. 
First year. 
506 NATATORES. LARUS. Gut. 
When arrived at maturity, which is not till after the third 
year, the ery of the Herring Gull, particularly during the 
breeding season, is very loud and piercing, and very unlike 
that of L. fuscus ; is readily uttered upon any alarm, and 
promptly attended to as a signal by all other birds within 
hearing. If taken when young, or even afterwards, it soon 
becomes reconciled to confinement, and will grow tame; in 
which state it can accommodate itself to a diet of worms, 
yaw flesh, or any other animal matter. It is numerously 
scattered throughout a great part of Europe, especially on 
the coasts of our own island, Holland, and France; but in 
the high northern latitudes is of rarer occurrence than many 
of the other Gulls. 
PLaTE 96*. represents this species of the natural size, and 
in the summer plumage. 
Bill, from the division of the feathers on the forehead to 
the tip, two inches and one-eighth long; colour ochre- 
yellow. The angle of the lower mandible orange-red. 
Orbits of the eyes orange. Head, neck, whole of under 
plumage, tail, and ridge of each wing, pure white. The 
six greater quills crossed by a black bar, which in the 
first occupies three-fourths of the quill, but becomes ra- 
pidly narrower through the rest, and is scarcely an inch 
broad upon the sixth. First quill having a white tip 
(for two inches in some specimens), marked with a small 
black spot on each web near the extreme point; the 
second with two spots on each side of the shaft, its tips 
and those of the next four quills being white. Tertials 
and secondaries tipped with white. Inrides pale gam- 
boge-yellow. Legs and feet pale ash-grey, tinged with 
flesh-red. Tarsus about two inches and a-half in length. 
Prate 96. represents the immature Bird. 
Bill blackish-grey. rides dark. Head, neck, and under 
plumage greyish-white, streaked and marbled with pale 
