646 LARID.E. 



way, aud the coasts of the North Sea and the Channel as 

 far as the north-west of France. Eastwards its occurrence 

 rests upon a single specimen brought from Novaya Zemlya, 

 identified by Dr. Av Von Pelzeln, and the expression of a 

 belief by Von Middendorflf that he saw this species on the 

 Taimyr in 75° N. lat. Westward it occurs in Iceland, where 

 Faber first observed it, and the substance of his remarks 

 may be thus given : — 



This is the only Gull that passes the winter in Iceland 

 without breeding there in summer. I have travelled over 

 most of the coast of the island, but have never found its 

 breeding-place. No L. leucoptcrus occur on the rocks of 

 Faxe or Bredebugt towards the west, where L. glauciis breeds 

 in large colonies. A few days after the middle of September, 

 the first specimens, both old and young, make their appear- 

 ance on the coast of Iceland, confining themselves to the 

 northern parts, among the small inlets of which great num- 

 bers pass the winter. When I lived on the innermost of the 

 small fiords on the northern coast, these birds were our daily 

 guests. Towards the end of April their numbers decreased, 

 and by the end of May they had nearly all disappeared from 

 Iceland. These tame birds came on land by my winter 

 dwelling on the northern coast, to snap up the entrails 

 thrown away by the inhabitants, and fought fiercely for them 

 with the Raven. I had made one so tame that it came every 

 morning at a certain time to my door to obtain food, and 

 then flew away again. It gave me notice of its arrival by 

 its cry. This Gull indicated to the seal-shooters in the 

 fiord where they should look for the seals, by continually 

 following their track in the sea, and hovering in flocks, and 

 with incessant cries over them ; and whilst the seals hunted 

 the sprat and the capeling towards the surface of the water, 

 these Gulls precipitated themselves down upon the fish and 

 snapped them up. In like manner they follow the track 

 of the cod-fish in the sea, to feed upon the booty hunted up 

 by this fish of prey. In the winter of 1820-21, which I 

 passed at Debratte, on the southern coast, there was not a 

 single L. IcucojHerus to be seen ; on the 1st of March, 1821, 



