The Herring Gull 



seamanship like a book. "Why, there isn't more than one kind, is there? 

 Well, yes; mebbe they's two kinds, the dark ones and the white ones; 

 or mebbe they's big and little ones." This, of faithful attendants after 

 twenty years' service at sea! 



We know, of course, that there are thirteen kinds of gulls in Cali- 

 fornia, besides their blood relatives, the Jaegers and Terns, of which there 



Taken in Seattle 



From a photograph, copyright loo8 t by W. 

 A GULL MELANGE 



Dawson 



are four and eight species, respectively. The captain might have been 

 sooner pardoned if he had answered "Forty!"; for when to the subtle 

 but shifting variety of adult marking is added the interminable shading 

 of childhood and youth, you have a scene of confusion worse confounded, 

 in which not even the expert is at home. But let us see if a little light 

 is possible : The dingy, mottled, or blackish gulls are (with one exception) 

 young birds of the first and second years. Save in the case of Heermann's 

 Gull (B. heermanni) all adult gulls are chiefly white, with the upper sur- 

 faces of back and wings — the mantle — chiefly blue-gray (pearly gray, 

 ashy gray, or plumbeous); while, also with one exception, the tips of the 

 wings, or primaries, are black, variously spotted and blotched (or not) 



1395 



