LARID^. 



657 



SABINE'S GULL. 



XiMA SAEiNii (Joseph Sabine). 



This small fork-tailed Gull is one of ihe species which were 

 first recognized in the United Kingdom by Thompson, who de- 

 scribed an immature example shot in Belfast Bay in September 

 1822. Since that date more than a dozen specimens have been 

 taken in Ireland ; while many others are on record from various 

 counties of England and Wales, with a few from Scotland. All 

 of them have occurred from August to December, and, with the 

 exception of six in summer-plumage obtained or observed, respec- 

 tively, in Yorkshire, the Island of Mull, Kent, Hants, Cornwall, and 

 on the coast of East Lothian, they have proved to be young birds. 



This almost circumpolar species was not noticed in Norway before 

 October 1SS6, nor until 1892 in Holland, but it has long been 

 known as a visitor to the islands and shores of the North Sea and 

 the north of France, while stragglers have reached Switzerland and 

 even Austro-Hungary. It was discovered on the Expedition of 18 18 

 in search of a North-west passage, by the late Sir Edward Sabine, 

 who found it nesting in lat. 75° 29' on the west side of Green- 

 land ; and it is now known to breed throughout the Arctic regions 

 of America, from Baffin Bay to Alaska. Thence it can be traced 

 across the high latitudes of Eastern Siberia as far as the Taimyr 

 Peninsula, where Middendorff obtained its eggs. It has not yet 

 been recorded from Novaya Zemlya or Franz Josef Land; but 



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