19 
BLACK-HEADED, OR LAUGHING GULL. 
Larus Atricilla, Linn 
PLATE CCCOXLHI. — Male m seeing, and Young, 
Much confusion appears to exist among authors regarding our Laughing 
Gull, and this, in my humble opinion, simply because not one of them has 
studied it, in its native haunts, and at all seasons, since the period when it 
was briefly characterized by our great master Linnaeus, who, after all that 
has been said against him, has not yet had his equal. Alexander Wilson, 
who, it seems, knew something of the habits of this bird, thought it how- 
ever identical with the Larus ridibundus of Europe, as is shewn by the 
synonymes which he has given. Others, who only examined some dried 
skins, without knowing so much as the day or even the year in which they 
had been shot, or their sex, or whether the feathers before them had once 
belonged to a bird that was breeding, or barren, when it was procured, 
described its remains perhaps well enough for their own purpose, but cer- 
tainly not with all the accuracy which is necessary to establish once and for 
ever a distinct species of bird. Others, not at all aware that most Gulls, 
and the present species in particular, assume, in the season of pairing, and 
in a portion of the breeding time, beautiful rosy tints in certain parts of 
their plumage, which at other periods are pure white, have thought that 
differences of this sort, joined to those of the differently-sized white spots 
observable in particular specimens, and not corresponding with the like 
markings in other birds of the same size and form, more or less observable 
at different periods on the tips of the quills, were quite sufficient to prove 
that the young bird, and the breeding bird, and the barren bird, of one and 
the same species, differed specifically from the old bird, or the winter-plumage 
bird. But, reader, let us come to the point at once. 
At the approach of the breeding season, or, as I like best to term it, the 
love season, this species becomes first hooded, and the white feathers of its 
breast, and those of the lower surface of its wings, assume a rich blush of 
roseate tint. If the birds procured at that time are several years old and 
perfect in their powers of reproduction, which is easily ascertained on the 
spot, their primary quills shew little or no white at their extremities, and 
their hood descends about three quarters of an inch lower on the throat than 
