The Glaucous Gull 
interesting sight to watch a large flock passing over calm water in this 
manner. They are limited strictly to tide-water and rarely ascend even 
the Yukon delta over a few miles. 
“Throughout its range this species has considerable curiosity and 
comes circling about any strange intruder to its haunts. In the bay at 
Saint Michaels they were frequently seen following a school of white 
whales, evidently to secure such fragments of Ash or other food as the 
whales dropped in the water, ft is curious to note how well the birds 
timed the whales and anticipated their appearance as the latter came 
up to blow.’’ 
Dr. Joseph Grinnell found the Paciflc Kittiwake breeding extensively 
on Chamisso Island in Kotzebue Sound, and he says 1 : “On July 9th (1899) 
the eggs were well advanced in incubation. I saw no nests containing 
more than two eggs, and many nests held but one. The nests consisted of 
a wet, muddy mass of decaying grasses, adhering to narrow ledges and 
projecting points of rocks, frequently so limited in extent as to make it 
appear as though the nest were stuck to the lace of the cliff like a Barn 
Swallow’s. The neatly-moulded saucer-shaped nest-cavity was lined 
with grasses. As I was let slowly down the face of the cliff at the end of a 
rope, the sitting Kittiwakes beneath me would allow me to approach very 
closely before launching from the nests. They would leave with a few pe¬ 
culiar shrill cries, and hover about me or soar back and forth along the 
cliff, while the ever circling Ales and swarms of murres and pufAns out over 
the water, was enough to bewilder one. I found the Kittiwakes’ nests built 
in colonies, that is, there would be as many as a dozen built close together, 
lined along a narrow ledge.’’ 
No. 271 
Glaucous Gull 
A. O. U. No. 42 . Larus hyperboreus Gunnerus. 
Synonyms.— Burgomaster. Point Barrow Gull. 
Description. —Adult in summer: Mantle pale pearl-gray; remaining plumage 
pure white; primaries entirely white or pale gray basally fading into white on tips, 
their shafts straw-yellow. Bill chrome yellow with vermilion spot at angle; feet and 
legs livid flesh-color; iris light hazel. In winter: Iris golden yellow; bill and feet 
paler than in summer; head and hind-neck lightly touched with pale brownish gray. 
Immature: Sordid white, shaded below (most uniformly on belly) with brownish, 
and slightly mottled above with pale reddish brown; exposed primaries chiefly brownish 
dusky, narrowly tipped with white; tail brownish dusky terminally (narrowly tipped 
1 Birds of the Kotzebue Sound Region. Pac. Coast Avifauna, No. I, p. 9. 
