14 
BIRDS OF PENNSYLVANIA. 
Genus LARUS Linnaeus. 
Larus argentatus smithsonianus Coues. 
American Herring Gull; Big Gull; Winter Gull. 
Description. 
Adult. —Head, neck, rump, tail and under parts white; mantle dull pale-blue ; 
primaries tipped with white, and barred with black ; bill yellow, with reddish spot; 
tarsi, flesh color ; iris, yellowish-white. 
Young. —Mottled with grayish-brown, white and light pearl-blue, the latter in 
patches on upper parts; primaries dusky; bill brownish-yellow, dark towards end ; 
iris, brown ; length about 25 inches ; extent about 59 inches. 
Habitat. —North of America generally, breeding on the Atlantic coast from Maine 
northward ; in winter south to Cuba and lower California. 
This species is a rather common spring and fall migrant on Lake 
Erie, where, during the winter months, if the weather is not exceedingly 
cold, these birds are also sometimes seen singly or in small companies 
of five or eight. Throughout the state in general this species occurs as 
quite a rare and irregular visitor. On the Delaware river, near Phila¬ 
delphia, and on the Susquehanna, below Lancaster, Herring Gulls are 
perhaps more frequently observed than elsewhere in Pennsylvania, ex¬ 
cept in the vicinity of Erie city. 
The Herring Gull is not especially an arctic breeder. It nests, ac 
cording to different writers, along the coast and about lakes of the inte¬ 
rior in the New England states, and also from Lake Superior northward 
to the Arctic shores. This species breeds generally on the ground, 
though sometimes high and inaccessible cliffs are selected as breeding 
places, and occasionally in some localities, particularly in regions where 
the natives collect both the eggs and young for food, they frequently, 
to escape such depredations, build their nests in the tops of high trees. 
Mr. George Spencer Morris, of Philadelphia, informs me he has observed 
both Herring and Ring-billed Gulls, as winter visitants, on the Dela¬ 
ware river, near the city. 
Larus delawarensis Ord. 
Ring-billed Gull. 
Description. 
“ Adult.— Head, neck, under parts and tail pure white ; back and wings very light 
pearl blue ; first and second primaries black for two-thirds of their length towards 
the end, the three next quills have the black much less in extent, and on the sixth 
it is reduced to a sub-terminal bar ; the first quill is black at the end, above which is 
a broad white band; the second quill is black to the tip, with a white spot on the 
inner web an inch and a half from the end ; the other primaries tipped with white ; 
secondaries and tertiaries ending in white; iris yellow; bill crossed near the end 
with a blackish-brown band, between which and the base it is greenish-yellow ; the 
tip is yellow; tarsi and feet greenish-yellow. Length about 20 inches ; extent about 
48 inches. 
