14 
BIRDS OF DURHAM AND VICINITY. 
main flight reaches here about the first of November, the earliest 
comers being adults, which appear white at a distance. The young 
ones in their gray plumage are so unlike their elders as to seem of a dif- 
ferent race. While many pass the day on inland water, they all go 
to sea to spend the night, out of the reach of harm. Though herring 
gulls generally hunt singly or in widely scattered flocks, they are 
social when at rest, and after the morning meal all the gulls in the 
neighborhood may be seen congregated on a sandspit or an isolated 
bit of marsh. They are very wary and never allow a man to come 
within gunshot if they know it. They fly over the water, watching 
with keen eyes for anything that may serve as food. They sometimes 
catch fish by diving down from aloft, but more often they alight 
beside a piece of floating garbage, which they tear into pieces with 
their powerful hooked beaks, and devour at leisure. 
Larus delawarensis. Ring-billed Gull. 54. 
This gull is a spring and fall migrant. It closely resembles the last 
species in color at all ages, but is somewhat smaller, and, when cap- 
tured, may be identified at a glance by the color of the webs of its 
feet, which is bright chrome, — on the Herring Gull it is flesh-color. 
Larus Philadelphia. Bonaparte's Gull. 60. 
Bonaparte's Gull is common at Hampton and elsewhere on the 
coast in August, September, and ihe early days of October, but is not 
often seen after the middle of the latter month. It occasionally is 
seen at Great Bay, but does not come so regularly as some of the 
winter gulls. It is much smaller than the other gulls found here, 
being only about thirteen inches long, — hardly more than half the 
length of a herring gull. Its bill is quite slender, and lacks the 
prominent hooked tip and angular outline of a typical gull bill. 
Its movements remind one of a tern rather than of a gull. Being 
our only summer gull it cannot be mistaken for any other, except near 
the end of its stay. This species is said to eat insects to a consider- 
able extent. 
Sterna caspia. Caspian Tern. 64. 
This, our largest tern, is an irregular visitor. Mr. Shaw tells me 
that he has observed it but twice at Hampton. Two, in immature 
plumage, were killed. there in the fall of '99. The skin of one of them 
is now in Mr. Shaw's possession. Though almost as large as a 
