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BONAPARTIAN GULL. 
Larus BONAPARTII, SWAINS. 
PLATE CCCXXIV. Mate, Femate, anp Youne. 
My first acquaintance with this species took place whilst I was at 
Cincinnati, in the beginning of August 1819. I was crossing the Ohio, 
along with Mr Rozert Best, then curator of the Cincinnati Museum, 
for the purpose of visiting the Cliff Swallows which had taken up their 
abode on the walls of the garrison on the Kentucky side, when we ob- 
served two Gulls sweeping gracefully over the tranquil waters. Now 
they would alight side by side, as if intent on holding a close conversa- 
tion; then they would rise on wing and range about, looking down- 
wards with sidelong glances, searching for small fishes, or perhaps eye- 
ing the bits of garbage that floated on the surface. We watched them 
for nearly half an hour, and having learned something of their manners, 
shot one, which happened to be a female. On her dropping, her mate 
almost immediately alighted beside her, and was shot. There, side by 
side, as in life, so in death, floated the lovely birds. One, having a dark 
bluish nearly black head, was found to be the male ; the other, with a 
brown head, was a female. On the 12th of November 1820, I shot one 
a few miles below the mouth of the Arkansas, on the Mississippi, which 
corresponded in all respects with the male just mentioned. 
No sooner do the shads and old-wives enter the bays and rivers of 
our Middle Districts, than this Gull begins to shew itself on the coast, 
following these fishes as if dependent upon them for their support, which 
however is not the case, for at the time when these inhabitants of the 
deep deposit their spawn in our waters, the Gull has advanced beyond 
the eastern limits of the United States. However, after the first of 
April, thousands of Bonapartian Gulls are seen gambling over the wa- 
ters of Chesapeake Bay, and proceeding eastward, keeping pace with 
the shoals of fishes. 
During my stay at Eastport in Maine, in May 1833, these Gulls 
were to be seen in vast numbers in the harbour of Passamaquody at 
high water, and in equal quantities at low water on all the sand and 
mud-bars in the neighbourhood. They were extremely gentle, searcely 
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