LAKID/F,. 



645 





^ii.*®::^-^t.^^^ 



BONAPARTE'S GULL. 



LaRUS PHILADELPHIA (Ord). 



It is to Thompson again tliat we are indebted for the first notice 

 of the occurrence of this species in the British Islands ; he having 

 correctly identified an example obtained near Belfast in Ireland on 

 February ist 1S48, and brought to him before it was skinned. In 

 Scotland an adult, which I exhibited at a meeting of the Zoological 

 Society of London in 1884, was shot on Loch Lomond about the end 

 of April 1850 by Sir George H. Leith-Buchanan ; while in England 

 one was killed in Falmouth harbour on January 4th and another at 

 Penryn^ — -close by — on Jannary loth 1865, and one early in Novem- 

 ber 1870 at St. Leonards in Sussex. Mr. Giitke informs me that he 

 has an adult taken on Heligoland in the depth of winter about forty 

 years ago, but otherwise there appears to be no authentic record of 

 the appearance of this bird in Europe. 



In summer Bonajjarte's Gull is widely distributed over the lakes 

 and wooded regions of the Fur countries of North America, from 

 a little within the Arctic circle down to about 60° N. lat. ; but it 

 does not visit the ice-fringed shores to the northward, and is of 

 very rare occurrence in Bering Sea, though not uncommon along 

 the Yukon and on the marshes at the mouth of that great river. 

 On migration it frequents the Pacific coast as far south as San Pedro 

 in California, as well as many of the inland waters of the United 

 States, while on the cast side it is abundant and of regular occur- 



