Larus leuconterus. 
Cambridge, Mass. 
1S97. I visited Pres'n Pond this morning at 8.50 and found an 
Dec.11. astonishing number and variety of water-fowl "bedded" off the 
' 
point of the Grove about 300 yards from shore. (Among them 
. 
was a single young L.leucopterus). The L.leucopterus, as I 
could distinctly see by the aid of my glass was a bird of the 
year lacking all trace of bluish on the mantle and having the 
primaries (which it was obliging enough to display by twice 
. 
raising and slowly opening its wings ) of a nearly uniform 
brownish white. In its general coloring it closely resembled 
the specimen taken on the Back Bay, Boston, by the Messrs. 
Bangs and recorded in the Nuttall Bulletin (VI, 1881, p.124). 
It looked somewhat smaller than any of the Herring Gulls which 
were swimming close around it and its attitudes and movements 
appeared to me more easy and graceful. Its coloring was so 
much lighter than that of the young Herring Gulls that it at¬ 
tracted ray attention the moment it came within the field of my 
glass. 
Of course in a way the identification of, this bird is 
open to some doubt inasmuch as it is not certain that we are 
as yet able to discriminate correctly between the young of 
L. leucopterus and L. kurnlleni or, to be more definite, that 
many if not indeed all of the Hew-England-shot specimens which 
have been referred to the former may not really belong to the 
latter species. This, however, must remain for the present 
Ck. \ oyb * ■>* cj a. a s t} c >i • 
