LAUGHING GULL
58. Larus atricilla. 16 in.
Largest of the black-headed gulls. Bill and feet carmine-red; primaries wholly black or only with slight white tips; eye brown; in breeding season, with the underparts tinged with pinkish. In winter, without the black hood, the head being tinged with grayish, and the bill and feet dusky. Young birds are like winter adults with the back more or less mixed with brownish and the tail crossed by a black band. The most southerly distributed of our eastern gulls, its northern breeding place being on the southern shore of Mass.
Notes.—Strange cackling laughter; hence their name.
Nest.—Heaps of rubbish and weeds on the ground in wet marshes. The 3 to 5 eggs are gray or olive-gray with black spots (2.25 × 1.60).
Range.—Breeds from the Gulf of Mexico north to Mass., and in the interior to Ohio, but most abundantly on the South Atlantic coast. Winters from the Carolinas to Northern South America.
