LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN GULLS AND TERNS. 159 



The juvenal plumage is complete before the young bird is fully 

 grown. In the fresh juvenal plumage the upper parts are largely 

 dusky drab, but the feathers of the back, scapulars, and lesser wing- 

 coverts are broadly tipped and margined with " cinnamon buff " or 

 " pinkish buff." The head, neck, and chest are heavily clouded with 

 dusky, the sides of the head being nearly clear dusky, darkest on the 

 lores, and the feathers of the neck and chest are narrowly tipped 

 with pale buff. The throat is partially white, and the under parts 

 are whitish, clouded with drab on the sides. The greater wing- 

 coverts are dusky, broadly edged with gray, and white tipped. The 

 remiges are black ; the tertials and secondaries broadly and the inner 

 primaries narrowly tipped with white. The tail is basally pearl 

 gray, the outer third or more black, and is tipped with white. As 

 the season advances buffy edgings on the upper parts wear away and 

 fade out to whitish. A gradual postjuvenal molt also takes place 

 during the fall and winter with the growth of new "gull gray" 

 feathers in the back and new white feathers in the head, neck, and 

 breast. This molt is practically continuous with the first pre- 

 nuptial molt, which produces further advance toward maturity; 

 the head becomes largely white, the under parts wholly so, the scapu- 

 lars and lesser wing-coverts become " gull gray," and sometimes some, 

 or even all, of the tail feathers are replaced by new pure white 

 feathers ; but usually the rectrices, the remiges, and the greater wing- 

 coverts remain as in the juvenal plumage. 



I can not find any evidence that the slate-colored head of the adult 

 nuptial plumage is even partially assumed at this age. 



At the first postnuptial molt, when the bird is a little over a 

 year old, the adult winter plumage is assumed by a complete molt, 

 but a few individuals may still retain traces of the black sub- 

 terminal bar in the tail, or other signs of immaturity. In the adult 

 winter plumage the dark hood of the adult nuptial plumage is re- 

 placed by a white head, mottled with dusky on the occiput, cervix, 

 and auriculars; the inner primaries are conspicuously white tipped, 

 decreasingly so outwards until the outer is entirely black; these 

 white tips wear away during the winter. The complete postnuptial 

 molt begins in July and is usually completed in September, but 

 sometimes not until October ; the outer primaries are the last feathers 

 to be renewed. Apparently young birds molt earlier in the summer 

 than adults, beginning sometimes as early as May. The partial pre- 

 nuptial molt occurs mainly in March, and involves the contour 

 feathers and the lesser wing-coverts. Dr. Elliot Coues (1877) gives 

 a striking account of the changes which take place at this season : 



Another change heightens the beauty of the birds when they are to be decked 

 for their nuptials in full attire. They gain a rich rosy tint over all the white 

 plumage of the under part ; then few birds are of more delicate hues than these. 



