228 
CHARADRIIFORMES 
to be confused only with the Ring-billed or perhaps the California. When juvenile it may 
at times be difficult to distinguish from either of these. The following schedule may 
Cm CO! cf • 
Small gull, L, 17*50. 
Evenly dark; tail evenly dark; bill dark, flesh-coloured at base; 
feet brownish or flesh-coloured First autumn 
Light, clouded and speckled; tail white with subterminal bar; 
bill dark or dark greenish; feet light greenish Immature 
Light; tail white; bill yellow; feet yellowish green; eyelids 
brown, gape red Adult 
Field Marks. The smallest of the common gulls of Herring Gull type of coloration. 
Bill without dark or red spot or ring. Field separation of juveniles except by size is some- 
what unreliable. 
Nesting. On the ground on stony, rocky, or marshy shores of freshwater lakes. 
Distribution. Western North America. Breeding in northern Alberta and Saskat- 
chewan, north tliroughout the Mackenzie and Yukon basins and the interior of Alaska. 
Migrates to the Pacific coast, wintering from the south half of Vancouver Island southward. 
Not recorded from the southern parts of the Prairie Provinces. 
SUBSPECIES. This is the American representative of the Old World Mew Gull 
Larus canus and has been proposed as a subspecies, the Short-billed Gull (Le Goeland a 
petit bee) Larus canus brachyrhynchus. 
The migration route of this species is most interesting, being one that 
is followed by several other species. Breeding in the centre of the great 
northern land mass of Mackenzie region, it migrates to the west coast, 
crossing the mountains in the north and not regularly coming south into 
settled country en route, though occasionally seen on the interior lakes of 
British Columbia. 
Little Black-headed Gulls 
There is a group of rather small gulls in America readily distinguished 
from the other members of the genus Larus by having in spring and summer 
plumage a complete black head and cape. In winter the black head is 
lost or represented only by more or less veiled or softened dark spots or 
suffusions, principally on ears and nape. 
58. Laughing Gull, la mouette ou mauve rieuse. Larus atncilla. L, 16-5. A 
small, white-bodied, grey-mantled gull with a black hood like Bonaparte’s Gull but dis- 
tinctly larger and with a noticeably darker mantle. 
Distinctions. Only occurring on the east coast, it requires particular separation only 
from Bonaparte’s Gull. Size, wing over 11 inches, will usually be diagnostic. In the adult 
the mantle is distinctly darker (about as in Franklin’s Gull) and the wing tips are solid 
a , Franklin’s Gull; 
Figure 333 
Field marks of: 
b, Laughing Gull; 
c, Bonaparte's Gull. 
black instead of containing much white. The juvenile is decidedly darker than the young 
Bonaparte’s. It gives the general effect of a brownish bird just whitening on the abdomen, 
whereas Bonaparte’s is a generally pure wiiite bhd lightly clouded above, with a white 
face and conspicuous ear spots instead of a generally brownish grey face. The solidly dark 
wings (Figure 334) are equally characteristic in the young plumages. 
