LAUGHING GULL. 137 



on the hind part of the head, provided the bird be a male. But should they 

 be barren birds, the hood ivill be ivanting, that portion of their plumage 

 remaining as during winter, and although the primaries will be black, or 

 nearly so, each of them will be broadly tipped, or marked at the end, with 

 a white spot, which in some instances will be found to be fully half an inch 

 in size; yet the tail of these birds, as if to prove that they are adults, is as 

 purely white to its extreme tip, as in those that are breeding; but neither the 

 breast, nor the under wing-coverts, will exhibit the rosy tint of one in the 

 full perfection of its powers. 



The males of all the Gulls with which I am acquainted, are larger than 

 the females; and this difference of size is observable in the young birds even 

 before they are fully fledged. In all of these, however, putting aside their 

 sex, I have found great differences of size to exist, sometimes as much as 

 two inches in length, with proportional differences in the bills, tarsi, and 

 toes; and this, in specimens procured from one flock of these Gulls at a 

 single discharge of the gun, and at different seasons of the year. The colour 

 of their bills too is far from being always alike, being brownish-red in some, 

 purplish or of a rich and deep carmine in others. As to the white spots on 

 the extremities of the primary quills of birds of this family, I would have 

 you, reader, never to consider them as affording essential characters. Nay, 

 if you neglect them altogether, you will save yourself much trouble, as they 

 will only mislead you by their interminable changes, and you may see that 

 the spots on one wing are sometimes different in size and number from those 

 on the other wing of the same specimen. If all this be correct, as I assure 

 you it must be, being the result of numberless observations made in the 

 course of many years, in the very places of resort of our different Gulls, 

 will you not agree with me, reader, that the difficulty of distinguishing two 

 very nearly allied species must be almost insuperable when one has nothing 

 better than a few dried skins for objects of observation and comparison? 



The Black-headed Gull may be said to be a constant resident along the 

 southern coast of the United States, from South Carolina to the Sabine river; 

 and I have found it abundant over all that extent both in winter and in 

 summer, but more especially on the shores and keys of the Floridas, where 

 I found it breeding, as well as on some islands in the Bay of Galveston in 

 Texas. A very great number of these birds however remove, at the 

 approach of spring, towards the Middle and Eastern Districts, along the 

 shores of which they breed in considerable numbers, particularly on those 

 of New Jersey and Long Island, as well as on several islands in the Sound. 

 They constantly evince a dislike to rocky shores, and therefore are seldom 

 seen beyond Massachusetts, in which State indeed they are exceedingly rare. 



None were observed by any members of my party on the Magdalene 



Vol. VII. 21 



