Species.
86. LARUS RIDIBUNDUS Linnæus.
LAUGHING GULL.

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.