Part 39

Characters same as those given for the Subfamily.

Species.

a1. Smaller; length, 400 mm.; wing, 300. ... ridibundus (p. 95) a2. Larger; length, 600 mm.; wing, 450. ... vegæ (p. 97)

86. LARUS RIDIBUNDUS Linnæus.

LAUGHING GULL.

Larus ridibundus Linnæus, Syst. Nat. ed. 12 (1766), 1, 225; Saunders, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. (1896), 25, 207; Sharpe, Hand-List (1899), 1, 140; Oates, Cat. Birds' Eggs (1901), 1, 208; McGregor and Worcester, Hand-List (1906), 21.

Luzon (Jagor, Murray, McGregor); Mindanao (Murray, Goodfellow). Europe, northern Asia, Africa, and Indian Ocean; China to Malay Archipelago in winter.

"Adult male in breeding plumage.--Hood coffee-brown; gray mantle, white tail, and white under surface tinged with evanescent roseate; pattern of outer primaries chiefly white, with black tips, and black margins to inner webs; shafts of three outer quills white; outermost quill white, with a narrow black line along the greater part of outer web (touching the shaft in all except very old birds), a black tip, and a blackish edge to the inner margin; second quill similar, but with merely a short hairline of black on the outer web; third quill with a trifle more black running upward from the black tip along the outer web; fourth quill similar, but with a gray center to inner web; fifth quill white on both webs, and with a minute white tip; sixth similar, but the tip gray and broader, so that the black becomes a subterminal bar; seventh similar, but with less and fainter black; upper primaries gray; secondaries paler gray, without conspicuous margins. Bill, tarsi, and toes lake-red; iris hazel. Length, 394 to 406; culmen, 46; wing, 298 to 305; tail, 127; tarsus, 43; middle toe with claw, 39.

"The female is undoubtedly smaller as a rule, though there are exceptions.

"Adult in winter.--Similar, but without a hood; merely a little grayish on the occiput, and blackish on the auriculars. In vigorous birds the indications of a hood reappear in autumn, soon after the completion of the molt, which is in August; but cold weather, combined with a scarcity of nutritive food, arrests the development, and it is not usual to see birds with fully complete hoods till February, though there are many exceptions. A female (by dissection) obtained in the shore-nets at Wells, Norfolk, on November 10, has the under parts, and even the shafts and webs of the primaries, suffused with a beautiful salmon-pink, but this also must be considered unusual.

"Nestling.--Buffish to brown, darkest on the upper parts, spotted and streaked with umber and black on the back, head, and throat.

"Young.--Forehead white, rest of head chiefly grayish brown; upper surface warmer brown, with gray lower wing-coverts; secondaries with blackish centers and white borders; the three outer primaries black on outer webs and at the tips and margins of inner webs, but the centers white, except the outermost, in which there is for a time a dark line inside the shaft; in the succeeding primaries the dark color increases ascendingly on the inner webs, while from the fifth the outer webs are pale gray to brownish, with a little white at tips; tail-feathers white, with a band of blackish brown; under surface dull white. Bill dull yellow, passing into black at the angles; tarsi and toes dull reddish yellow. The brown color is soon lost on the back, which has become gray by December.

"Immature.--Like the adult, with a few brown markings left on the upper wing-coverts, and more black on the outer webs of the primaries. More or less of a brown hood is assumed when the bird is barely a year old, and the band on the tail is lost by the following autumn, when the new primaries appear, with, as has been said, a larger proportion of black than in the adult; in fact the duration of the immature phase is very short. The bird does not breed until the following, or second spring.

"Occasionally the black from the margins of the inner webs of the three outer quills runs in and reaches the shafts, much encroaching upon the usual white centers, though not to the same extent on both wings of the same bird. This is noticeable in two examples obtained at Dinapur in December." (Saunders.)

This small gull is often abundant about Manila Bay but does not remain throughout the year.

87. LARUS VEGÆ (Palmen).

VEGA GULL.

Larus argentatus var. vegæ Palmen, Vega Exped., Vetensk (1887), 5, 370. Larus vegæ Saunders, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. (1896), 25, 269; Sharpe, Hand-List (1899), 1, 141; Hartlaub, Abhandl. Natur. Ver. Bremen (1899), 16, heft. 2, 270; McGregor and Worcester, Hand-List (1906), 21.

Luzon (Schmacker). Bering Sea and Arctic Siberia; Chinese coasts, Japan, Formosa, and Bonin Islands in winter.

Adult male in breeding plumage.--Head, neck, tail, and under parts white; mantle and wing surface french-gray, with broad white tips to the scapulars and secondaries, making a conspicuous alar bar; all the primaries tipped with white; outermost quill blackish from the base downward (save a narrow gray wedge on inner web), with a white tip 63 mm. in length in mature birds, and a narrow, black bar which divides the white into tip and "mirror" in the majority; second quill blackish for about 10 mm. on both sides of shaft, with a black subterminal bar, a white mirror, and, on the inner web, a broad, gray wedge which sometimes breaks through and joins the mirror; third quill grayish basally, blackish on the lower part of outer web and on the subterminal bar, gray on the inner web, passing into white at the apex of the wedge; fourth similar but gray on both webs above the bar; fifth quill similar but bar narrower; sixth gray, without a bar in mature birds and with a narrow bar in others; the remaining quills gray with white tips. In less mature birds there is no mirror on the second quill. Ring around eye and gape bright orange-red; tarsi and toes pale flesh-color. Length, about 610; wing, 457; tail, 197; culmen, 74; tarsus, 70; middle toe with claw, 66.

The female is smaller and less robust.

Adult in winter.--Similar but head and neck streaked with ash-brown.

Immature and young.--In the first autumn the upper parts are streaked and mottled with brown and grayish buff; quills dark umber, with paler inner webs and whitish tips to most; rectrices similar, but more or less mottled with whitish at bases of two or three outer pairs; feathers of upper tail-coverts brown, with buffish white tips; under parts nearly uniform brown at first, but afterwards brownish gray, mottled; bill blackish, paler at base of lower mandible. The second autumn the head is nearly white, streaked with grayish brown; the upper parts are barred with brown on a grayish ground, though no pure gray feathers have yet made their appearance on mantle; quills paler; tail more mottled with white at the bases of all the feathers. In the third autumn the feathers of the mantle are chiefly gray, with some brownish streaks down the shafts; a faint subapical spot begins to show on the outermost primary; the tail-coverts are partly white, and the dark portion of the rectrices is much broken up; under parts nearly white. In the fourth autumn the subapical patch on first primary is larger, and the quills from the fifth upward are banded with black and tipped with white; tail-feathers white, slightly vermiculated with brown; bill greenish yellow basally, reddish black at the angle. At the molt of the fifth autumn all brown markings are lost, the primaries have white tips, black bars, and gray wedges, though the proportion of dark coloring in quills is greater than it is in older birds. (Compiled from Saunders.)

The only notice of the occurrence of the Vega gull in the Philippine Islands, appears to be the record by Hartlaub.

Order CHARADRIIFORMES.

SHORE-BIRDS AND WADERS.

Wings long, flat, and pointed, with narrow, rapidly graduated primaries; inner secondaries long; tail usually quite short; rarely forked (Glareola) or greatly elongated (Parridæ); legs generally long and slender, sometimes extremely so; toes short except in Parridæ, either semipalmate or cleft to the base; lobate in Phalaropodinæ; bill slender, compressed, and covered with soft skin, rarely hard throughout (Arenaria). Members of this order live on the ground in open places, usually near water and many of the species assemble in flocks during the winter months. Eggs three or four, highly colored and much spotted, usually pyriform. The nest, with rare exceptions, is a slight hollow in the ground. The young are downy and able to run within a few hours after leaving the egg. This order includes the sandpipers, plovers, snipes, Acurlews, and their allies.

Suborders.