220 THE BIRDS OF THE BRITISH ISLES. 



and the bill, legs, and irides, which are at first brownisli, 

 approach nearer to the colours of maturity. Length, 29 ins. 

 Wing, iS'5 ius. Tarsus, 275 ins. 



Iceland Gull. Lams hucopteriis Faber. 



The Iceland Gull (Plate 96) nests in Greenland and part of 

 Arctic America ; its breeding range and its winter wanderings 

 are more restricted than those of the last species. It is not a 

 native of Iceland, but winters there, arriving in September and 

 leaving in May. Annually some reach the Shetlands, and 

 usually other northern islands and the Scottish coast, but else- 

 where it is a rare straggler, except during an invasion of the 

 species, when it is met with in all parts. 



The main difference between this whitish gull and the 

 Glaucous is size ; it is about the bulk of the Lesser Black- 

 back. From all other gulls, except the rare Ivory Gull, which 

 has black legs, it can be told by its whitish primaries. In 

 its later stages of immaturity it is dull or dirty white, and 

 though in its first winter it is said to be darker than the first- 

 year Glaucous, it is paler looking than other young gulls. Mr. 

 H. G. Alexander, who watched a bird at Dungeness, noted its 

 peculiar cry. It frequently consorts with Herring or other 

 gulls, and even feeds with them on insects and grain in the 

 fields ; it does not appear to be specially partial to carrion, 

 and certainly is less predacious than the fierce Glaucous. 



The proportionately longer wings, which project well beyond 

 the tail when the bird is at rest, look long and narrow in 

 flight ; it flies with ease and buoyancy. The very pale-grey 

 and white bird has the head streaked with greyish brown in 

 winter. The yellow bill has red at the angle, but the legs are 

 flesh-coloured, as are the eye-rims, dirferent in both cases from 

 those of the Glaucous; the irides are yellow. The immature 

 stages, so far as they have been worked out, appear to 



