402 GULL 



Pagophila and Ehodostethia have but one species each, Bissa and Xema 

 two, while the rest belong to Larus. The Pagophila is the so-called 

 Ivory-Gull, F. eburnea,^ names which hardly do justice to the 

 extreme whiteness of its plumage, to which its jet-black legs offer a 

 strong contrast. The young, however, are spotted with black. An 

 inhabitant of the most northern seas, examples find their way in 

 winter to more temperate shores. Its breeding-places have seldom 

 been discovered, and the first of its eggs seen by ornithologists was 

 brought home by Sir L. M'Clintock in 1853 from Cape Krabbe 

 (Joii/rn. B. Dubl Soc. i. p. 60, pi. 1); two others- were obtained by 

 Dr. Malmgren in Spitsbergen in 1868, and, in August 1887, the 

 captain of a Norwegian ship found from 100 to 150 nests on Storo, 

 an islet on the extreme north-east of that country^ (Ibis, 1888, pp. 

 440-443, pi. xiii.) Of the species of Eissa, one is the abundant 

 and well-known Kittiwake, E. tridactijla, of circumpolar range, 

 breeding, however, also in comparatively low latitudes, as on the 

 coasts of Britain, and in -winter frequenting southern waters. The 

 other is E. brevirostris, Limited to the North Pacific, between Alaska 

 and Kamchatka. The singular fact requires to be noticed that in 

 the former of these species the hind tbe is generally deficient, but 

 that examples, and especially those from Bering's Sea, are occa- 

 sionally found in which this functionless member has not wholly 

 disappeared. We have then the genus Lams, which ornithologists 

 have hitherto attempted most unsuccessfully to subdivide. It 

 contains the largest as well as the smallest of Gulls. In some 

 species the adults assume a dark-coloured head every breeding-season, 

 in others any trace of dark colour is the mark of immaturity. The 

 larger species prey on eggs and weakly birds, while the smaller 

 content themselves with a diet of insects and worms. But how- 

 ever diverse be the appearance, structure, or habits of the ex- 

 tremities of the series of species, they are so closely connected by 

 intermediate forms that it is hijrd to find a gap between them that 

 would justify a generic division. Of the forty -five species of this 

 genus now recognized by Mr. Saunders it would be here impossible 

 to attempt to point out the peculiarities. About seventeen belong 



1 The white Gulls reported to Gunner (Leeni, De Lapp. Cominent. p. 285), 

 and called by him Larus albus, may have been as he thought identical with the 

 Rathsherr of Marten [Spitsh. Rein. p. 56), which undoubtedly was the Ivory- 

 Gull ; but there is nothing to prove that they were. Hence I cannot adopt that 

 specific name, as recent American writers do. From what has been before said 

 as to Gavia, they seem to be also wrong in using that word as a generic name 

 in place of Pagophila: 



2 One of these has long been in my possession. 



^ The Norwegian pilot of the yacht in which I visited Spitsbergen told me 

 that the crew of a boat which visited Giles's Laud in 1859 found many Ivory- 

 Gulls' nests on its shore {Ibis, 1864, p. 508). 



