The Western Gulls 



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Taken in Humboldt County Photo by the Author 



A DECORATED CEILING 



pure white. Bill stout and deep with very convex culmen and strongly marked angle, 

 the mandible touched with vermilion on side near tip; irides brown; feet pale purplish 

 rosy or flesh-colored. Adult in worn plumage: Mantle duller, sometimes glossed with 

 brownish; subterminal white spots of primaries disappearing with wear, and the black 

 less intense, more brownish, in extreme cases rusty-weathered. Adult in winter: 

 Occasionally, but not always, head and neck all around streaked or finely nebulated 

 with plumbeous dusky. This trait, characteristic of certain other species of gulls in 

 fullest maturity, e. g.,L. delawarensis, appears to be thrown off in fully adult occidentalis. 

 It may be seen in perfection, however, in "near adult" (3rd autumnal?) specimens. 

 Downy young: Much as in L. glaucescens, but ground-color lighter, more yellowish, 

 and black of markings inclined to brownish. First year birds: General color brownish 

 slate, highly varied on back and wings by edgings of grayish white, fulvous, and pale 

 tawny; rump and upper tail-coverts and flanks conspicuously barred dusky and whitish; 

 head and neck lightly streaked with whitish; underparts (except lining of wings, where 

 pure slaty) variously mingled or clouded with sordid white; wing-quills and tail brown- 

 ish black. Bill dusky black terminally, flesh-colored at base. Second year birds: 

 Much as in foregoing, but plumage more blended, nebulation of finer pattern, and 

 general color tone more uniform and with a tinge of vinaceous. Third year and transi- 

 tion plumages: (The precise sequences are too complex for our consideration.) Gen- 

 eral pattern of adult, but white decreasingly clouded with vinaceous dusky, wings 

 decreasingly patched or clouded with brownish gray; primaries lustrous brownish 

 black, without any white (this being in some examples the last adult character assumed) ; 

 tail decreasingly marked with black; black of bill decreasingly persistent on tip. Meas- 



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