548 Capt. Sabine's Memoir on the Birds of Greenland, ^c. 



Before I had the pleasure of meeting with Mr. Temminck, he 

 had desio-ned to give the specific name of argentatus to the Eu- 

 ropean bird; it will therefore remain as I have placed it at the 

 head of this species : the name of glaucus, which in his Manuel 

 was given to the Herring Gull, will be removed by him to the 

 true Glaucous Gull. It is singular that Pennant, in his Arctic 

 Zoology, under the head of Herring Gull, states that bird to be 

 common in Greenland throughout the year; though no other 

 writer, as far as my observation has extended, mentions the cir- 

 cumstance, and we did not observe a single one with black pri- 

 mary quill- feathers during our voyage in the Straits. 



21. Larus Eburneus. Ivory Gull. 



L. Eburneus. Gmel. i. 596. Lath. Ind. Orn. ii. 8l6. Temm. 498. — Ivory Gull. Lath. 

 Syn. vi. 377. Jrct. Zool. ii. 529. ^- Supp. 70. — L. Candidas. Fabr. 103. MiilL p. viii. 



Abundant in Baffin's Bay. Authors describe the length of 

 this bird as sixteen or seventeen inches ; the matured specimens 

 obtained, averaged twenty inches; but an immature one measured 

 an inch less. AVeight about twenty ounces. Nothing can exceed 

 the beauty of the delicate snow-white plumage of this species in 

 its maturity: I apprehend that this takes place at the end of the 

 second year ; on the 24th of August the young birds were ob- 

 served in flight, much mottled with brown about the head, and 

 probably also about the wings, though not so visibly. A specimen 

 killed the first week in June, of a bird apparently of the pre- 

 ceding year, has a few light-brown feathers about the bill, extend- 

 ino- towards the eyes, a very small transverse band of brown spots 

 across the primary wing coverts, thickest at the point of the 

 wing; the primary quill and the tail feathers slightly tipped with 

 brown. Since my return I have seen a specimen of an immature 

 bird with the ends of the primary quill-feathers and of the tail- 

 feathers 



