Dusky and Swallow-tailed Gulls of the Galapagos Islands

(Denver Museum of Natural History, Museum Pictorial No. 15, January 20, 1961). 229 x 152mm; saddle-stitched pictorial wraps; "Lammergeyer" bookplate of Jack Vincent inside front cover; pp. 32; map; black-and-white photographs. Very good condition. "During July and August 1960, seven members of the Denver Museum of Natural History field party worked among the volcanic islands of the Galapagos Archipelago, which straddles the equator some six hundred miles in the Pacific Ocean off the west coast of Ecuador. . . . When doing field work on the various islands, two species of endemic gulls were noted commonly, and there were many opportunities to observe and photograph them. The nesting of the Swallow-tailed Gull (Creagrus furcatus) has been reported upon by Gifford (1913), R. C. Murphy (1936) and others, but the nest and eggs of the Galapagos Dusky Gull (Larus fuliginosus) were unknown at the time of the Denver Museum expedition, although naturalists since the time of Darwin have speculated upon the nesting and searched for the eggs of this common species. I was fortunate enough to find a nest, and this short article is devoted to a brief resumé of the literature available to me and to an account of our observations of both species of these endemic gulls." .