The Western Gulls 
Taken in Humboldt County Photo by the Author 
A DECORATED CEILING 
pure white. Bill stout and deep with very convex culmen and strongly marked angle, 
the mandible touched with vermilion on side near tip; irides brown; feet pale purplish 
rosy or flesh-colored. Adult in worn plumage: Mantle duller, sometimes glossed with 
brownish; subterminal white spots of primaries disappearing with wear, and the black 
less intense, more brownish, in extreme cases rusty-weathered. Adult in winter: 
Occasionally, but not always, head and neck all around streaked or finely nebulated 
with plumbeous dusky. This trait, characteristic of certain other species of gulls in 
fullest maturity, e. g .,L. delawarensis , appears to be thrown off in fully adult occidentalis. 
It may be seen in perfection, however, in ‘‘near adult” (3rd autumnal?) specimens. 
Downy young: Much as in L. glaucescens, but ground-color lighter, more yellowish, 
and black of markings inclined to brownish. First year birds: General color brownish 
slate, highly varied on back and wings by edgings of grayish white, fulvous, and pale 
tawny; rump and upper tail-coverts and flanks conspicuously barred dusky and whitish; 
head and neck lightly streaked with whitish; underparts (except lining of wings, where 
pure slaty) variously mingled or clouded with sordid white; wing-quills and tail brown¬ 
ish black. Bill dusky black terminally, flesh-colored at base. Second year birds: 
Much as in foregoing, but plumage more blended, nebulation of finer pattern, and 
general color tone more uniform and with a tinge of vinaceous. Third year and transi¬ 
tion plumages: (Theprecise sequences are too complex for our consideration.) Gen¬ 
eral pattern of adult, but white decreasingly clouded with vinaceous dusky, wings 
decreasingly patched or clouded with brownish gray; primaries lustrous brownish 
black, without any white (this being in some examples the last adult character assumed); 
tail decreasingly marked with black; black of bill decreasingly persistent on tip. Meas- 
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