652 BLACK-HEADED GULL. 
(A. Canadensis,) when in good condition, will seldom weigh more than 
twelve pounds. In order to determine this point, we personally ex- 
erted ourselves, and commissioned some of our friends, to procure a 
good specimen of the Loon during the past season, but without success 
BLACK-HEADED GULL.—LARUS RIDIBUNDUS. — Fic. 314. 
Linn. Syst. 225.— La Mouette rieuse, De Buff. xvi. p. 232. Pl. enl. 970.— La 
Mouette rieuse a pattos rouges, Briss. — Lath,.Gien. Sy t. 2, p. 380. — Br. 
Zool. ii. 252. — ‘Act, Zool. Nor 454, 458. é Laughing Gull, }Calesby, 1, 89.— 
Will, Orn. p. 347, pi. 66.— Pewit, Black-Cap, or Sea-Crow, Rati Syn. p. 128, 
A. 5,— Bewick, ii. 00. — Peale’s Museum, No. 3381. 
LARUS ATRICILLA. — Linnzvs.* 
Larus ridibundus, Ord. 1 edit. of Sup. p. 89. — Larus atricilla, Bonap. Synop. p. 359. 
Leneru, seventeen inches; extent, three feet six inches; bill, thighs, 
legs, feet, sides of the mouth, and eyelids, dark blood red; inside of 
* This Gull is the only one figured by Wilson, though several are mentioned in 
his list, and, no doubt, had he survived to complete his great undertaking, many 
others would have been both added and figured. I have introduced a short de- 
scription of those which have been since noticed by writers on Arctic and Northern 
zoology, but any observations will be confined, for the present, to the form now be- 
fore us, perhaps more familiar in the Black-headed Gull of Britain. 
The Gulls are distributed over the whole world, and present various forms. 
They are mostly, however, of graceful appearance, and perform their motions with 
ease and lightness ; their plumage is often of snowy whiteness, or tinged with a 
pale blush, adding to its delicacy. By the poets they are employed as emblems 
of purity, when riding buoyantly on the waves, and weaving a sportive dance, or | 
as accessaries to the horrors of a storm, by their shrieks and wild, piercing cries. 
In their manners they are the vultures of the ocean, feed indiscriminately on fish 
or on carrion, and frequently attack birds of inferior power. A dead horse, newly 
cast upon the beach, will present a picture little inferior to that drawn by Audubon 
of the American Vultures, on the discovery of some putrid carcass. 
Our present bird will rank under the genus Xema of Boje, which will contain 
those of swallow-like form, apparently both a natural and well-defined group. 
They are not so sry Pelee as many of the other forms— ascend the course of 
rivers in search of food, and breed by the inland lochs or marshes — are extremely 
clamorous and intrepid in defence of their young, but during winter are one of the 
most shy and wary. They undergo an annual change of plumage during the 
breeding season, obtaining the whole or part of the head of a dark and decided 
color from the rest of the body, generally shades of deep and rich brown, or gray ; 
in winter this entirely disappears, and is succeeded by pure white, except on the 
auriculars, which retain a trace of the darker shade. They fecd on fish and insects, 
and some follow the plough in search of what it may turn up. _In fishing, they ex- 
hibit occasionally the same manner of seizing their prey as the Terns, hovering 
above, and striking it under water with the wings closed. 
The species which are noticed by the Prince of Musignano, and the authors of 
the Northern Zoology, as inhabiting North America, are — 
1. L. Sabinii, (Xema Sabinii, Leach.) — Discovered by Captain Edward Sabine, breed- 
ing in company with the Arctic Tern, on the west coast of Greenland ; they seem 
confined to high latitudes. 
2. Larus minutus, Pall. —Tnhabiting the North, but seldom seen in the United States. 
3. Larus capistratus, Tem. —Inhabiting the Nor fy, aud not very rare during autumn 
