254 
LAUGHING GULL. 
a dirty, dark, purplish brown. Others have not the white spots 
above and below the eyes; these are young birds. 
The changes of plumage, to which birds of this genus are 
subject, have tended not a little to confound the naturalist; and 
a considerable collision of opinion, arising from an imperfect 
acquaintance with the living subjects, has been the result. To 
investigate thoroughly their history, it is obviously necessary 
that the ornithologist should frequently explore their native 
haunts; and to determine the species of periodical or occasional 
visiters, an accurate comparative examination of many speci- 
mens, either alive, or recently killed, is indispensable. Less 
confusion would arise among authors, if they would occasion- 
ally abandon their accustomed walks — their studies and their 
museums, and seek correct knowledge in the only place where 
it is to be obtained — in the grand Temple of Nature. As it 
respects, in particular, the tribe under review, the zealous in- 
quirer would find himself amply compensated for all his toil, 
by observing these neat and clean birds coursing along the 
rivers and coast, enlivening the prospect by their airy move- 
ments: now skimming closely over the watery element, watch, 
ing the motions of the surges, and now rising into the higher 
regions, sporting with the winds; while he inhaled the invigo- 
rating breezes of the ocean, and listened to the soothing mur- 
murs of its billows. 
The Laughing Gull, known in America by the name of the 
Black-headed Gull, is one of the most beautiful and most sociable 
of its genus. They make their appearance, on the coast of New 
Jersey, in the latter part of April; and do not fail to give notice 
of their arrival, by their familiarity and loquacity. The inhabi- 
tants treat them with the same indifference that they manifest 
towards all those harmless birds, which do not minister either 
to their appetite or their avarice; and hence the Black-heads 
may be seen in companies around the farm-house; coursing along 
the river shores, gleaning up the refuse of the fishermen, and 
the animal substances left by the tide; or scattered over the 
marshes, and newly-ploughed fields, regaling on the worms. 
