LARID.t:. 



665 



THE ICELAND GULL. 



Larus i.eucopterus, Faber. 



This smaller white-winged species — which bears about the same 

 proportion to the Glaucous that the Lesser Black-backed does to 

 the Great Black-backed Gull — was first recognized in the British 

 Islands by the late Dr. Lawrence Edmonston of Unst in Shet- 

 land, and is now known as a tolerably frequent, though irregular, 

 visitor to the sea-board of Scotland in cold weather. The winter of 

 1872-3, which was remarkable for an unusual advent of Glaucous 

 Gulls in the Firth of Forth, was still more so for the influx of 

 Iceland Gulls, many of them being adults ; and, though this bird 

 is naturally rarer on the English shores, a large number reached 

 Cornwall in January and February of the latter year, while in 

 1874-5, after long-continued gales, both young and old were plenti- 

 ful on the coast of South Devon. On its migration northwards this 



