
118 LAUGHING GULL. 
fine blue ash colour ; the first five primaries are black towards 
their extremities ; the secondaries are tipt largely with white, 
“ DIMENSIONS.—Length, total, 23 inches; of tail, 7 inches, 3 lin. ; of wing, 16 
inches, 6 lin. ; of bill above, 2 inches ; of bill to rictus, 3 inches; from nostrils to 
tip, 11 lin. ; of nostrils, 43 lin. ; of tarsus, 2 inches, 45 lin. ; of middle toe, 2 
inches, 1 lin. ; of middle nail, 5 lin.; of inner toe, 1 inch, 6 lin. ; of inner nail, 4 
lin. ; of hind toe, 3 lin. ; length of hind nail, 25 lin. 
‘Six individuals, killed on Melville Peninsula in June, July, and September, 
varied in total length from 23 to 25 inches, and in the length of their tarsi from 
27 to 31 lines. 
‘Bonaparte thus gives the distinctive characters of the two species :— 
“‘T,. argentatoides.— Back and wings, bluish grey; quills, black at the point, 
tipped with white, reaching but little beyond the tail; shafts, black; first 
primary, broadly white at tip; second, with a round white spot besides ; tarsus, 
less than two and a half inches; nostrils, oval ; length, twenty inches. 
“7. argentatus.—Mantle, bluish grey; quills, black at the point, tipped with 
white, reaching much beyond the tail; shafts, black; first primary only with a 
white spot besides the narrow tip; tarsus, nearly three inches ; nostrils, linear ; 
length two feet. They are closely allied, and may at once be distinguished by 
the size.” 
12. ZL. aryentatus, Brunn.—Herring Gull, Wilson’s List.—Common to both 
continents, and not uncommon near New York and Philadelphia. 
13. L. leucopterus, Faber.—Inhabiting the arctic circle, whence it migrates 
in winter to the boreal regions of both continents, advancing farther south 
in America: not rare in the northern and middle States. 
14. L. glaucus, Brunn.—Inhabiting the arctic regions, and exceedingly rare 
in the United States. 
15. L. marinus, Linn.—Black-backed Gull, Wilson’s List.—Not uncommon 
during winter in the middle States. 
16. D. zonorhynchus, Richards.—Ring-billed Mew Gull, a new species, de- 
scribed in ‘‘ Northern Zoology.” —Bill, ringed, rather longer than the tarsus, 
which measures two and a half inches; mantle, pearl grey; ends of the 
quills and their shafts, blackish ; a short white space on the two exterior 
ones. 
17. L. bachyrhynchus, Richards.—Short-billed Mew Gull.—Another species, 
described as new in the ‘* Northern Zoology.”—From the description of the 
present bird copied from that work, it will be seen that the authors them- 
selves are not decided in their opinions as to the absolute distinction of this 
and the preceding from ZL. canus, and I have placed them here for the 
same reason that they are admitted into that valuable work. It is not 
unlikely that they, or at least the same varieties, may be discovered on 
our own coasts. 
“Short-billed mew gull, with a short, thickish bill; a tarsus scarcely two inches 
long; quills, not tipped with white ; a short white space on the two exterior ones, 
and blackish shafts. 
** Our specimen of this gull is a female, killed on the 23d of May 1826, at Great 
Bear Lake. Some brown markings on the tertiaries, primary coverts, and bastard 
wing, with an imperfect sub-terminal bar on the tail, point it out as a young bird, 
most probably commencing its second spring. The rest of its plumage corresponds 
with that of LZ. zonorhynchus, except that it wants the extreme white tips of the 

