The Glaucous Gull 



with white), finely mottled brownish and white, changing to pure white basally. Bill 

 flesh-colored, tipped with black — always the whitest of local young gulls. Length of 

 adult: 533.4-812.8 (26.00-32.00); wing 431.8-469.9 (17.00-18.50); tail 203.2 (8.00); 

 bill 50.8-76.2 (2.00-3.00); depth at nostril 20.3 (.80); tarsus 63.5-82.5 (2.50-3.25). 



Recognition Marks. — Largest of local gulls; plumage almost white above; 

 primaries and tips broadly white, distinctive. 



Nesting. — Does not breed in California. Nest: As in glaucescens. Eggs: 

 See description of normal gull type under Western Gull. Av. size 76.2 x 53.3 (3.00 

 x 2.10). Season: June-July; one brood. 



General Range. — The Arctic regions. In America breeding from northern 

 Greenland through the Arctic Archipelago and along the mainland coasts to the Aleutian 

 Islands and the mouth of the Kuskokvvim River in Alaska. Winters along the coasts 

 of the Arctic and sub-Arctic zones and from the Aleutians and Greenland south to 

 Monterey, the Great Lakes, and Long Island; casually further. 



Occurrence in California. — Not common winter visitant along the coast south 

 to Monterey and less commonly to Santa Barbara. 



Authorities. — Cooper (Larus hutchinsii) , Proc. Calif. Acad. Sci., vol. iv., 1868, 

 p. 9 (Farallons and San Francisco Bay) ; Loomis, Proc. Calif. Acad. Sci., ser. 2, vi., 

 1896, p. 22; ibid., ser. 3, zool. ii., 1900, p. 357 (Monterey); Dwight, Auk, vol. xxiii., 

 1906, p. 30 (full desc. ; crit.); Cooke, U. S. Dept. Agric, Bull. no. 292, 1915, p. 22 (distr. 

 and migr.) which also consult for all succeeding species of Gulls and Terns; Bent, U. S. 

 Nat. Mus., Bull. no. 113, 1921, p. 52 (life hist. ; desc. and photos of nest, eggs, etc.) and 

 so for all species of Lariformes. 



NEXT AFTER the Ivory Gull (Pagophila alba), whose attainment of 

 white plumage is absolute, the sturdy Glaucous is most nearly assimilated 

 to the color of the ice, which forms the familiar setting of its summer home 

 in northern Alaska and its winter home in the Aleutians. With leucopterus, 

 a smaller species of exactly similar pattern, not found in the North Pacific, 

 it shares, or divides, dominion of all southern and middle Arctic coasts. Its 

 southern breeding range overlaps that of L. glaucescens and perhaps of L. 

 nelsoni in the Pacific, and that of L. kumlieni in the Atlantic tributaries. 



Our chief interest in hyperboreus attaches to the fact that a few, 

 usually stray individuals, winter south to Monterey or even Santa Bar- 

 bara. We count upon seeing one or two of them every winter at the Chan- 

 nel City; and twice, in midsummer, I have seen stranded youngsters, 

 orphans who had forgotten to migrate, sitting on the sands of "Shore 

 Acres" inside the city limits. With Heermann Gulls ranged alongside of 

 them and Westerns galore for companions, one could not help remarking 

 and speculating upon that perfect gradation of color in gulls which obtains 

 along our northeast Pacific coast. See ! there is heermanni, the slaty-black 

 fellow who nests along the western coast of Mexico as far north as Ilde- 

 fonso; then occidentalis, he of the plumbeous mantle and black wing-tips, 

 breeding from Lower California to the middle coast of Washington ; then 

 glaucescens, with pale gray mantle and gray wing-tips, breeding north to 



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