136 



BLACK-HEADED, OR LAUGHING GULL. 



tLartjs Atricilla, Linn. 

 PLATE CCCCXLIII Male in spring, and Young. 



Much confusion appears to exist among authors regarding our Laughing 

 Gull, and this, in my humble opinion, simply because not one of them has 

 studied it, in its native haunts, and at all seasons, since the period when it 

 was briefly characterized by our great master Linn.etjs, who, after all that 

 has been said against him, has not yet had his equal. Alexander Wilson, 

 who, it seems, knew something of the habits of this bird, thought it how- 

 ever identical with the Larus ridibundus of Europe, as is shewn by the 

 synonymes which he has given. Others, who only examined some dried 

 skins, without knowing so much as the day or even the year in which they 

 had been shot, or their sex, or whether the feathers before them had once 

 belonged to a bird that was breeding, or barren, when it was procured, 

 described its remains perhaps well enough for their own purpose, but cer- 

 tainly not with all the accuracy which is necessary to establish once and for 

 ever a distinct species of bird. Others, not at all aware that most Gulls, and 

 the present species in particular, assume, in the season of pairing, and in a 

 portion of the breeding time, beautiful rosy tints in certain parts of their 

 plumage, which at other periods are pure white, have thought that differences 

 of this sort, joined to those of the differently-sized white spots observable in 

 particular specimens, and not corresponding with the like markings in other 

 birds of the same size and form, more or less observable at different periods 

 on the tips of the quills, were quite sufficient to prove that the young bird, 

 and the breeding bird, and the barren bird, of one and the same species, 

 differed specifically from the old bird, or the winter-plumage bird. But, 

 reader, let us come to the point at once. 



At the approach of the breeding season, or, as I like best to term it, the 

 love season, this species becomes first hooded, and the white feathers of its 

 breast, and those of the lower surface of its wings, assume a rich blush of 

 roseate tint. If the birds procured at that time are several years old and 

 perfect in their powers of reproduction, which is easily ascertained on the 

 spot, their primary quills shew little or no white at their extremities, and 

 their hood descends about three quarters of an inch lower on the throat than 



