654 LAEUS FKANKLINI, FRANKIjIN's ROSY GULL. 



DiAG. L. rostra rubra, cueuUa schisiacea-nigra, pallia griseo-cceruJea, caudd perlaced, remi- 

 gibiis primis sex nir/ro-cinctis lath albo-terminatis, rhachidibits alMs, j)atjonio extervo primi 

 nigra nisi in apieeni. Long. tot. 14.00 poll. ; al. 11.25; tars. 1.60. 



B^aft.— North America to high latitudes, but only in the interior (observed on neither 

 coast). Mexico. Part ot the West Indies. Central and South America to Chili. 



Hetilenant Warren's Expedition.— i8S7, Nebraska. 

 Later Expeditions. — 58981, Upper Jlissouri. 



Amlt, breeding plumage.— BU\ rather slender, attenuated and a little decurved at the 

 tip, which is acute ; outline of both rami and gonys concave. Bill shorter than bead ; 

 tarsus equal to middle toe and claw. Bill red (carmine, lake, or vermilion), crossed 

 with black near the end. Legs dusky reddish. Edges of eyelids orange. Eyelids 

 white, this color also reaching a little behind the eye. Hood deep slaty or plumbeous 

 black, encircling the upper part of the neck as well as the head, and extending further 

 on the throat than on the nape. Mantle uot quite so dark as in atricilla (more blue), 

 darker than in Philadelphia. First primary with the outer vane black to within an 

 inch of the tip; the inner pearly white, crossed an inch or more from the tip by an 

 isolated black bar an inch broad, thus leaving the feather white on both webs for an 

 inch or more from the tip. The next five primaries are basally of the color of the 

 back, paler on tie inner web, and both webs fading toward their tips into white; each 

 is crossed by a black bar near the end, two inches wide on the second primary, narrow- 

 ing on successive feathers to a small bar or pair of little spots on the sixth ; the tips of 

 all these primaries pure white. Other primaries, with secondaries and tertials, colored 

 like the back, fading at the tips into white ; shafts white, sometimes black along the 

 black portion of the feather. Tail very pale pearly blue, the three lateral pairs of rec- 

 trices white — or rather tail white, lightly washed with pearly on the six central feathers. 

 Neck all around, rump, broad tips of secondaries and tertials, and whole under parts, 

 white, the latter rosy. 



Younger, that is to say, in summer plumage, and with a perfect hood, red bill, &c., 

 but the primaries not yet having attained their perfect pattern: — General coloration 

 exactly as before. Shafts of first three primaries black, of the rest gray, except along 

 the black portion of the feathers ; fi.rst primary with the outer web wholly black, the 

 inner web pearly gray, much like the back but lighter, to within two or three inches 

 of the tip, then black for the rest cf its extent ; second like the first, but the base of 

 the outer web like the inner ; on the third, fourth, and fifth, succeseively, the black 

 decreases in extent, till on the sixth it is merely a little bar, or pair of spots ; tips of 

 fill the primaries white ; that of the first primary smallest, that of the others success- 

 ively increasing in size. 



The bird in this plumage just described, is what Mr. Lawrence and myself have been 

 calling " ciicullatus Lieht." for some years. It has all the marks of being an adult bird, 

 and so we were misled — the more easily, because the original specinien (No. 4320, Mus. 

 Smiths., Calcasieu Pass, La.), type of pi. 93, fig. 1 , Atla-s B. N. A., identified as cucuUatus, 

 has an unusually small, short bill,* a small hood, and certain other marks a little dif- 

 ferent from anything we had then seen in franklini. There are now, however, in the 

 Institution plenty of specimens showing that our cucuUatus is only a state of franklini, 

 jost before absolute maturity. In No. 4320 the hood is a good deal speckled with 

 white, but I have seen others (e. g. No. 27621) with perfectly black hood, and the pri- 

 maries identical with those of 4320. Without going into any further explanations, I 

 may simply state that this identity of the supposed two species is established. 



■\Vith this reduction, a number of names range as synonyms ot franklini. I have not 

 been able, of course, to verify Lichtenstein's cucuUatus as appertaining to what Law- 

 rence and I have been calling cucuUatus, but I presume there is no doubt on that score. 

 There are some other names, as pipixcan Wagler, and that go wherever cucuUatus does. 

 In fact, any knowu Chroicocephalus in North America or Mexico, that is uol. atricilla nor 

 Philadelphia, must be franklini; for it is certain that we have only these three distinct 

 species, as far as known. 



To resume description of franklini : A specimen (No. 45688, Selkirk settlement) 

 shows exactly how the pictura of the primaries changes from that last described (the 

 formerly considered cucuUatus) to the perfect condition. It is just half way between. 

 The terminal black on the first primary is disappearing, to leave the tip pure white for 

 an inch or more, but a remnant of it is left. This bird is otherwise mature (black hood, 

 red bill, 4&c.). 



Winter plumage. — As in summer ; the hood wanting or indicated by a few slaty feath- 

 ers about the eyes, on the auriculars and nape ; the rosy wanting ; the bill and feet dull 

 colored. I have no winter specimens that have attained their perfect picture of the 

 primaries, but presume that the primaries wlU be found, in adult birds, to be colored 

 as in summer. 



* As an example of extreme variation of this species in size and shape of bill, I give 

 these measurements : No. 4320, along cnlmen, 1.20 ; height opposite nostril, 0.35. No. 

 27621, along culmen, 1.40 ; height at nostril, only 0.35, as before. 



