SABINE'S GULL 



159 



absence of black markings on the primary quills and the black of the 

 under surface of the wing. In summer the head and upper part of the 

 neck are deep black, the back and wing-coverts pearl-grey, the primaries 

 grey broadly tipped with white, and the rest of the plumage white, 

 tinged on the under-parts with pink. In winter the head is white 

 streaked with ash on the nape and ear-coverts. At all seasons the beak 

 is deep lake-red, and the legs and feet are vermilion. Young birds are 

 mottled with dark brown above, with a band of the same colour across 

 the end of the tail ; but the primary quills are sooty, with a white 

 margin on the free edge of the inner web, the under surface of the wing 

 is white, the beak is black, and the legs are yellowish red. The chick 

 is warm buff in colour, streaked and spotted with dark brown. 



Sabine's Gull 

 (Xema sabinei). 



Although manifestly only a wanderer from the 

 Arctic regions, where it is found all round the Pole, 

 the gull named after Sir Edward Sabine (by whom 

 it was discovered during Sir J. Ross's voyage to Baffin Bay in the 

 first quarter of the last century) so frequently reaches the British 

 Islands that it is difficult to refuse it a definite place among their 

 fauna. In fact, during 

 the nineteenth century 

 no less than fifty ex- 

 amples of the species 

 were recorded from 

 our area, although 

 nearly all were imma- 

 ture birds. The locali- 

 ties where they were 

 obtained are dotted 

 over the whole king- 

 dom, although most 

 of them are in the 

 neighbourhood of the 

 coast, and the majority 

 in England. Autumn 

 and winter, namely, 

 from August to December, are the seasons in which these birds most 

 commonly make their appearance on our coasts. A specimen was 

 taken in Hampshire in 1904. 



From the typical gulls, Sabine's gull and an allied species inhabit- 

 ing the Galapagos Islands off the western coast of South America, are 



SABINE'S GULL (SUMMEK) 



