The Glaucous-winged Gull 
coast to the Bay of Fundy, more rarely to Long Island, casually to Sault Ste. Marie, 
Lake Erie (Lorain), Cape Hatteras, etc. In Europe winters south to the northern 
British Isles and the Baltic, rarely to northern France. 
Occurrence in California. —One record of a specimen picked up dead at Buena 
Vista Lake, Dec. 30, 1921, by Loye Miller and A. van Rossem. 
Authorities.—Dickey and van Rossem (Lams leucopterus) , Auk, vol. xxxix., 
1922, p. 411 (Buena Vista Lake, Dec. 30, 1921, 1 spec.); C. W. Townsend, in Bent, U. S. 
Nat. Mus., Bull. no. 113, 1921, p. 62 (life history). 
THE OCCURRENCE of this North xAtlantic species in California 
must be reckoned purely fortuitous — or, if we admit a designing Provi¬ 
dence, it was brought about in order that the hearts of two bird-men might 
be made glad with a new record (and, incidentally, the pages of this book 
burdened with an account of a bird which no reader, on any theory of 
probabilities, will ever see again in California). Also, fifteen species and 
subspecies of gulls for California is “no that bad”. The quest of records 
has all the rewards of life in the open and all the fascination of a game of 
chance; while the interpretation of records keeps a hundred ornitholo¬ 
gists clucking contentedly in the closet. 
No. 273 
Glaucous-winged Gull 
A. 0 . U. No. 44 . Larus glaucescens Naumann. 
Synonyms.— Common Gull. Harbor Gull. Blue Gull. Burgomaster 
(name properly restricted to L. glaucus). 
Description. — Adult in summer: Mantle pearl-gray (of about the same shade 
as that of L. argentatus ); wing-tip chiefly gray, of about the color of back—in particular: 
1st primary nearly uniform pearl-gray with a large subterminal spot of white on both 
webs, separated by gray band from white tip; 2nd, 3rd, and 4th primaries ashy gray 
terminally, changing through white (narrowly) to pearl-gray of basal portion, tipped 
with white; 5th and 6th as in preceding, but ashy gray subterminal portion narrower, 
and contiguous white broader; remaining primaries and secondaries color of back with 
broad white tips. Remaining plumage pure white. Bill yellow, a rounded spot of 
bright vermilion at angle of lower mandible, this usually shadowed above by a dusky 
spot (this dusky spot is the last persistent trace of adolescence; it is sometimes larger 
than the red spot in specimens otherwise perfectly adult, and only the oldest birds are 
entirely without it); feet dull flesh-pink, or pale purplish rosy; irides brown, of varying 
shade. Adult in winter: Head, neck, and breast, but not throat, obscurely (or, 
rarely, heavily) clouded with light grayish dusky of a vinaceous cast. Downy young: 
Bill and feet black; down chiefly grayish white, upperparts spotted and striped in 
intricate but characteristic pattern with grayish black. Young-of-the-year: Bill 
black; plumage grayish dusky, with a vinaceous cast, nearly uniform below, but above 
