“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.

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.