Plate CCXCI. Adult and Young.
Bill robust, compressed, gamboge-yellow, with an orange-red patch
toward the end of the lower mandible; iris silvery-white; feet
flesh-coloured; head, neck, lower parts, rump, and tail pure white;
back and wings light greyish-blue; edges of wing and extremities of
quills white; the first six quills brownish-black towards the end,
that colour including the outer webs and the greater part of the inner
of the first two, and on the rest gradually diminishing, so as on the
sixth merely to form a bar; the first quill with a patch of white
about an inch and a half long on both webs near the end, the second
with a circular patch on the inner web; the tips of all white. The
terminal markings of the outer quills vary. Young with the bill
brownish-black, paler at the base of the lower mandible, feet purplish
flesh-colour; general colour of plumage light purplish-grey, the upper
part of the head darker, the lower parts mottled with pale
yellowish-grey; feathers of upper parts and upper tail-coverts
irregularly edged and barred with greyish-white; primary quills
greyish-black, terminally margined with whitish; tail of the same
colour, its base and the outer webs of the lateral feathers
irregularly mottled with whitish, the tips brownish-white.
_Male_, 23, 53. _Young_, in winter, 18-3/4, 51.
Abundant in autumn, winter, and early spring, from Texas along the
whole Atlantic coast to Newfoundland. Breeds from the Bay of Fundy to
Melville Island. Common in autumn on the Great Lakes, the Ohio, and
Mississippi.
Larus argentatus, Bonap. Syn. p. 360.
Herring Gull, Larus argentatus, Nutt. Man. v. ii. p. 304.
Herring Gull, Larus argentatus, Aud. Orn. Biog. v. iii. p.
588; v. v. p. 638.