The Glaucous-winged Gull 



coast to the Bay of Fundy, more rarely to Long Island, casually to Sault Ste. Marie, 

 Lake Erie (Lorain), Cape Hatteras, etc. In Europe winters south to the northern 

 British Isles and the Baltic, rarely to northern France. 



Occurrence in California. — One record of a specimen picked up dead at Buena 

 Vista Lake, Dec. 30, 1921, by Loye Miller and A. van Rossem. 



Authorities. — Dickey and van Rossem (Larus lencopterus), Auk, vol. xxxix., 

 1922, p. 411 (Buena Vista Lake, Dec. 30, 1921, 1 spec); C. W. Townsend, in Bent, U. S. 

 Nat. Mus., Bull. no. 113, 1921, p. 62 (life history). 



THE OCCURRENCE of this North Atlantic species in California 

 must be reckoned purely fortuitous — or, if we admit a designing Provi- 

 dence, it was brought about in order that the hearts of two bird-men might 

 be made glad with a new record (and, incidentally, the pages of this book 

 burdened with an account of a bird which no reader, on any theory of 

 probabilities, will ever see again in California). Also, fifteen species and 

 subspecies of gulls for California is "no that bad". The quest of records 

 has all the rewards of life in the open and all the fascination of a game of 

 chance; while the interpretation of records keeps a hundred ornitholo- 

 gists clucking contentedly in the closet. 



No. 273 



Glaucous-winged Gull 



A. 0. U. No. 44. Larus glaucescens Naumann. 



Synonyms. — Common Gull. Harbor Gull. Blue Gull. Burgomaster 

 (name properly restricted to L. glaucus). 



Description. — Adult in summer: Mantle pearl-gray (of about the same shade 

 as that of L. argentatus) ; wing-tip chiefly gray, of about the color of back — in particular: 

 1st primary nearly uniform pearl-gray with a large subterminal spot of white on both 

 webs, separated by gray band from white tip; 2nd, 3rd, and 4th primaries ashy gray 

 terminally, changing through white (narrowly) to pearl-gray of basal portion, tipped 

 with white; 5th and 6th as in preceding, but ashy gray subterminal portion narrower, 

 and contiguous white broader; remaining primaries and secondaries color of back with 

 broad white tips. Remaining plumage pure white. Bill yellow, a rounded spot of 

 bright vermilion at angle of lower mandible, this usually shadowed above by a dusky 

 spot (this dusky spot is the last persistent trace of adolescence; it is sometimes larger 

 than the red spot in specimens otherwise perfectly adult, and only the oldest birds are 

 entirely without it); feet dull flesh-pink, or pale purplish rosy; irides brown, of varying 

 shade. Adult in winter: Head, neck, and breast, but not throat, obscurely (or, 

 rarely, heavily) clouded with light grayish dusky of a vinaceous cast. Downy young: 

 Bill and feet black; down chiefly grayish white, upperparts spotted and striped in 

 intricate but characteristic pattern with grayish black. Young-of-the-year : Bill 

 black; plumage grayish dusky, with a vinaceous cast, nearly uniform below, but above 



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