the Birds of the Lower Petchora. 453 



doubt, the legs lose their yellow colour and become greyish 

 white, but the orange-red eyelid is retained. Mr. Hume^s 

 Larus argentatus agrees exactly with the Mediterranean Her- 

 ring-Gull [L. leucopheeus) . 



Larus glaucus, L. 



Our first acquaintance with the Glaucous Gull in the north 

 of Russia was made on the night of the 13-14th July, when 

 we landed upon No. 4 of the Golaievskai group of islands. 

 Here we shot several old birds, and secured specimens of the 

 young in down, which latter, upon comparison, resemble the 

 young of the last-named species, but, as might have been ex- 

 pected, have fewer and fainter dark markings on the back''^. 

 The nests were heaps of sand hollowed slightly at the apex j 

 and a few irregularly disposed tufts of coarse seaweed formed 

 the only lining. Seaweed and small drift wood were the only 

 materials on the low almost perfectly level sandbank which 

 the birds could choose from. Afterwards we saw Glaucous 

 Gulls commonly along the shore at Dvoinik, and shot speci- 

 mens from the deck of the wrecked sloop. The following is 

 a description of the soft parts of the adult birds obtained by 

 us : — Legs pale llesh-colour with a tinge of pink ; beak and 

 round the eye straw-yellow ; point of bill pale horn, and a 

 vermilion spot on the angle of the lower mandible ; pupils 

 blue-black, irides pale straw-yellow ; inside of mouth pale 

 flesh- colour. 



Stebcorarius crepidatus (Gm.), Saund. P. Z. S. 1876, 

 p. 326. 



We found the Richardson's Skua upon the tundra mingling 

 with flocks of the next species, or scattered in pairs over their 

 breeding-haunts. Nowhere did we find them so abundant as 

 the Bufl'on's Skua; but though we obtained no eggs of the 

 latter species, we found several nests of the former. The first 



* We find the youug in down of this species described as piu'e white 

 on first emergence from the shell (Harting, ' Fauna of the Prybilov Islands ;' 

 reprinted from the ' Field ' : London, 1875, p. 32), becoming gradually 

 brownish black and grey as they become older. Those we obtained 

 were about four or five days old. 



2i2 



