572 LARUS LEUCOPTERUS. 



gentleman has, among other notes respecting the birds of 

 Shetland, sent me the following, having reference to this very 

 question. The reader, after perusing them, will be enabled 

 to judge for himself : — 



" Greater and Lesser Iceland Gulls. Almost all I have 

 to say of these is to be found in my papers regarding them in 

 the Wernerian Transactions, published some years ago. I 

 saw and shot the first specimen, a young bird, of the Great 

 species, in autiimn 1809. In the spring of 1814, I sent a 

 similar specimen, and remarks on the species, almost verbatim 

 what are contained in my first paper in the Wernerian 

 Memoirs, to Mr. Bullock, of London ; and that specimen, 

 the only one which that acute and experienced observer had 

 ever seen, continued to be exhibited in his Piccadilly Museum 

 until its dispersion. This specimen Mr. Bullock told me was 

 purchased by Mr. Sabine. I intended that the observations 

 sent should be laid before the Linnsean Society ; but I went 

 shortly afterwards to the Continent. On my return, Mr. 

 Bullock mentioned to me that the paper had been sent for 

 perusal to a Mr. Sabine, from Avhom he had not again been 

 able to obtain it. Mr. Bullock further told me that the 

 different liOndon ornithologists, among the rest Dr. Latham, 

 who saw and examined my specimen, knew^ nothing of the 

 species to which it belonged. Before 1814 I had imbibed the 

 opinion, and expressed it in the paper above alluded to, of 

 the existence of another species, the Lesser Iceland Gull, 

 the accuracy of which my later observations, and those of 

 others, have confirmed. Thus stand the facts, as far as I am 

 concerned. Although it is not my nature to be obtrusive, 

 common justice entitles me to assert that I was the first, 

 more recently, who drew attention to these two species, 

 clearly distinguished, and vernacularly named them, and, 

 moreover, proved that they were regular winter visitants of 

 the British Isles. Whatever might be the claims of the 

 older writers, or opinions on the Continent, these birds had 

 been, until my specimens and paper appeared, forgotten by 

 British zoologists. When an ornithologist such as Latham 

 knew nothing of such a species, it was not to be supposed 

 tliat a Shetland youlh, immersed in ihe obscurilv of his 



