Much confusion appears to exist among authors regarding our Laughing Gull, and this, in my humble opinion, simply because not one of them has studied it, in its native haunts, and at all seasons, since the period when it was briefly characterized by our great master LINNÆUS, who, after all that has been said against him, has not yet had his equal. ALEXANDER WILSON, who, it seems, knew something of the habits of this bird, thought it however identical with the _Larus ridibundus_ of Europe as is shewn by the synonyms which he has given. Others, who only examined some dried skins, without knowing so much as the day or even the year in which they had been shot, or their sex, or whether the feathers before them had once belonged to a bird that was breeding, or barren, when it was procured, described its remains perhaps well enough for their own purpose, but certainly not with all the accuracy which is necessary to establish once and for ever a distinct species of bird. Others, not at all aware that most Gulls, and the present species in particular, assume, in the season of pairing, and in a portion of the breeding time, beautiful rosy tints in certain parts of their plumage, which at other periods are pure white, have thought that differences of this sort, joined to those of the differently-sized white spots observable in particular specimens, and not corresponding with the like markings in other birds of the same size and form, more or less observable at different periods on the tips of the quills, were quite sufficient to prove that the young bird, and the breeding bird, and the barren bird, of one and the same species, differed specifically from the old bird, or the winter-plumage bird. But, Reader, let us come to the point at once. At the approach of the breeding season, or, as I like best to term it, the love season, this species becomes first hooded, and the white feathers of its breast, and those of the lower surface of its wings, assume a rich blush of roseate tint. If the birds procured at that time are several years old and perfect in their powers of reproduction, which is easily ascertained on the spot, their primary quills shew little or no white at their extremities, and their hood descends about three quarters of an inch lower on the throat than on the hind part of the head, provided the bird be a male. But should they be barren birds, _the hood will be wanting_, that portion of their plumage remaining as during winter, and although the primaries will be black, or nearly so, each of them will be broadly tipped, or marked at the end, with a white spot, which in some instances will be found to be fully half an inch in size; yet the tail of these birds, as if to prove that they are adults, is as purely white to its extreme tip, as in those that are breeding; but neither the breast, nor the under wing-coverts, will exhibit the rosy tint of one in the full perfection of its powers.