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THE COMMON AMERICAN GULL. 



Larvs zonorhynchvs, Richardson. 



PLATE CCXII. Adult Male, and Young in winter. 



No country can afford greater facilities for the migration of water- 

 birds than the United States of America. Even the Gulls are enabled to 

 traverse their whole extent from north to south, and in the contrary di- 

 rection, without suffering from want of food or of proper resting places. 

 The Gull that has been bred in Labrador, or still farther north, can reach 

 the Gulf of Mexico without being seriously incommoded by the storms that 

 now and then rage along the Atlantic coast. The broad waters of the St 

 Lawrence leads it to our great lakes, from which hundreds of streams 

 conduct it to the head waters of the Ohio or the Mississippi, by follow- 

 ing the windings of which it at length arrives in the warm regions of the 

 Mexican Gulf, on whose waters the traveller can spend the winter. That 

 these advantages are embraced by many species of Gull, there can be no 

 doubt ; and should you, as I have done, repeatedly visit our broad lakes, 

 or the great rivers just mentioned, you would find there, at particular 

 seasons, not only this species, but several others, as well as various kinds 

 of Terns, but none of the genus Lestris. Lake Erie suppUes with food 

 the Larus marinus, L. argentatus, L. atricilla, and some others, as 

 well as the Great, the Arctic, the Roseate, and the Black Terns, all of 

 which pass at times over to the Ohio, and from thence to the ocean. 

 During these inland movements, the birds seem to be pecuharly attract- 

 ed by certain places, at which they remain for a while. Thus, at the 

 Falls of the Ohio, some species remain for weeks, and wherever much 

 shipping occurs on that river or the Mississippi, Gulls are sure to be seen 

 gleaning the garbage that has been thrown overboard, or seizing such 

 fishes as rise incautiously to the surface of the water. In the months of 

 September and October, Gulls and Terns might almost be said to abound 

 on our great streams, and many return thither during the spring months 

 on their way northward. Nay, to some species of Tern, the beautiful 

 sand-bars and rocky beaches that occur here and there, are so attractive as 

 to induce a few to remain and breed there. This is especially the case 

 with the Black Terns, some of which rear their young by the rapids of 



