46 Allen's naturalist's library. 



Young. — Similar to the winter plumage of the adult and wanting 

 the black collar. The head, neck, and under surface of the 

 body white, with a greyish shade on the crown and a little black 

 behind the eye ; tail wTdge-shaped and having a black band at 

 the end of all the feathers except the outer ones ; feathers of 

 the rump and upper tail-coverts tipped with black ; wing-coverts 

 and innermost secondaries black, with indistinct white tips, 

 forming a band down the wing ; bastard-wTng and primary- 

 coverts black ; primaries black along the outer web and on the 

 inner side of the shaft, the rest of the inner weh white, which 

 cuts across the end of the inner primaries and forms a sub- 

 terminal bar ; the innermost primaries white, with a black tip ; 

 the secondaries white ; tarsi and toes brown. 



Range in Great Britain. — One specimen of the Wedge-tail Gull 

 has been recorded from England, having been said to have been 

 shot near Tadcaster, in December, 1846, or February, 1847. 

 This example, formerly in Sir W. Milner's collection, is now in 

 the Leeds Museum. Some doubt has been thrown on the 

 authenticity of the occurrence, as the specimen appears, in the 

 opinion of several naturalists, to have been mounted from a 

 skin and not from a freshly killed bird. As Mr. Saunders points 

 out, however, the species has occurred in Heligoland, and there 

 is nothing improbable in its having turned up in Yorkshire, to 

 which I may add that it w^ould have been difficult for a dealer 

 to have purchased a skin fifty years ago. 



Range outside the British Islands. — The following range for this 

 species is given by Mr. Howard Saunders : — " Arctic Regions, 

 N.W. Greenland (Disco); Melville Peninsula; Boothia; Point 

 Barrow, N. Alaska, coming from the direction of Herald 

 Island; St. Michael's, Alaska (once); icy sea from Bering 

 Strait to the mouth of the Lena ; Barents Sea between Franz- 

 Josef Land and Spitsbergen, including the latter; Faeroe 

 Islands (once); Yorkshire (once); Heligoland (once)." Dr. 

 Nansen discovered the breeding-place of this species on some 

 islands which he has called Hvitenland, in lat. 80° 38' N., 

 long. 63° E. He whites in the " Daily Chronicle," of 

 November, 3, 1896: — 



"This, the most markedly polar of all bird forms, is easily 



