LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN GULLS AND TERNS. 9 



many hundred pairs nesting. Their breeding place was an inaccessible cliff 

 about half a roi^e from the seashore. The greater number of the birds nesting 

 here were in the plumage described in Doctor Coues's monograph of the Laridae 

 as the nearly adult plumage; but there were also a good many birds that were 

 unicolored blackish brown all over, but with the long vertically twisted tail 

 feathers. That these were breeding I think there can be no doubt, as I saw 

 them carrying food up to the ledges on the cliff, for the young I suppose. 



Eggs. — The Pomarine jaeger lays two or three eggs to a set, 

 usually the former. They are said to be scarcely distinguishable 

 from certain eggs of the parasitic jaeger or of the mew gull, but 

 are more pointed. The shape is ovate or pointed ovate. The shell 

 is smooth and slightly glossy. The ground color varies from " brown- 

 ish olive " or " Brussels brown " to " olive lake " or " dark olive buff." 

 They are rather sparingly spotted with "bone brown,' 1 ' "bister," 

 " chestnut brownf or " snuff brown," and occasionally with under- 

 lying spots or blotches of various shades of drab or gray. The meas- 

 urements of 49 eggs, in various collections, average 62 by 44 milli- 

 meters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 72.6 by 44.9. 

 68 by 48, 57.2 by 43.6, and 58.5 by 40 millimeters. 



Plumages. — The young when first hatched is covered with long 

 soft down, of plain colors and unspotted ; the upper parts are " clove 

 brown " or " olive brown " and the under parts " drab " or " light 

 drab." The plumage appears first on the scapulars, back, and wings, 

 then on the breast, and the full juvenal plumage, which is not dis- 

 tinctly separated from the first winter, is acquired before the young 

 bird is fully grown. The first winter plumage is the well-known 

 brownish mottled plumage, in which the body feathers and particu- 

 larly the scapulars are heavily barred transversely with dark browns 

 or dusky tints and tipped with rufous or pinkish buff ; the central 

 tail feathers are only slightly elongated beyond the other reetrices. 

 This plumage is worn with slight changes all through the first year, 

 or until the first postnuptial molt, which begins in June and lasts 

 until October. The rufous or buff edgings gradually fade out to 

 white during the winter; during the molt into the second-year 

 plumage August birds show old barred feathers with white edgings 

 and new barred feathers with rufous edgings. The second winter 

 plumage is still mottled or barred, but is much lighter colored; 

 the browns are grayer and there is more white, the rufous edgings 

 soon disappearing. There is less barring on the under parts and 

 the belly is often wholly white centrally ; the under tail-coverts are 

 heavily barred with white and dusky. There are sometimes signs of 

 the golden collar in this, plumage. If there is any molt in the 

 spring, it is only partial, and probably the young bird does not 

 breed in this plumage the second spring. 



At the second postnuptial molt the following summer, when the 

 bird is about 2 years old, the third-year plumage is assumed. This 



