120 BLACK-HEADED, OR LAUGHING GULL. 
Much confusion appears to exist among authors regarding our 
Laughing Gull, and this, in my humble opinion, simply because not one 
of them has studied it, in its native haunts, and at all seasons, since the 
period when it was briefly characterized by our great master Linnzvs, 
who, after all that has been said against him, has not yet had his equal. 
ALEXANDER Witson, who, it seems, knew something of the habits of 
this bird, thought it however identical with the Larus ridibundus of 
Europe, as is shewn by the synonymes which he has given. Others,who 
only examined some dried skins, without knowing so much as the day 
or even the year in which they had been shot, or their sex, or whether 
the feathers before them had once belonged to a bird that was breed- 
ing, or barren, when it was procured, described its remains perhaps 
well enough for their own purpose, but certainly not with all the 
accuracy which is necessary to establish once and for ever a distinct 
species of bird. Others, not at all aware that most Gulls, and the pre- 
sent species in particular, assume, in the season of pairing, and in a 
portion of the breeding time, beautiful rosy tints in certain parts of 
their plumage, which at other periods are pure white, have thought 
that differences of this sort, joined to those of the differently-sized 
white spots observable in particular specimens, and not corresponding 
with the like markings in other birds of the same size and form, more 
or less observable at different periods on the tips of the quills, were 
quite sufficient to prove that the young bird, and the breeding bird, 
and the barren bird, of one and the same species, differed specifically 
from the old bird, or the winter-plumage bird. But, Reader, let us 
come to the point at once. 
At the approach of the breeding season, or, as I like best to term 
it, the love season, this species becomes first hooded, and the white 
feathers of its breast, and those of the lower surface of its wings, as- 
sume arich blush of roseate tint. If the birds procured at that time 
are several years old and perfect in their powers of reproduction, which 
is easily ascertained on the spot, their primary quills shew little or no 
white at their extremities, and their hood descends about three quar- 
ters of an inch lower on the throat than on the hind part of the head, 
provided the bird be a male. But should they be barren birds, the hood 
will be wanting, that portion of their plumage remaining as during win- 
ter, and although the primaries will be black, or nearly so, each of them 
