330 BRITISH BIRDS. 



LARUS GLAUCUS. 



GLAUCOUS GULL. 



(Plate 50.) 



Larus glaucus. Briinn. Oni. Bar. p. 44 (17G4); Fabr. Faun. Groenl. p. 100 (1780); 



et auctorum plurimorum — Nuionann, Temminck, Dresser, Saunders, kc. 

 Larus {^ganteus, Temm.Jide Benicken, Ann. Wetter. Gesellsch. iii. p. 140 (1812). 

 Larus leuceretes, Schleep, Neue Ann. Wetter. Gesellsch. i. p. 314 (1819). 

 Larus consul, Boie, Isis, 1822, p. 875. 



Icarus islaudicais, Edmonston, Mem. Wern. Soc. iv. p. 50G (1820). 

 Larus glacialis, Macr/ill. Mem. Wern. Soc. v. p. 270 (1824). 

 Leiicus glaucus {Briinn.), Kaap, Katiirl. Syst. p. 86 (1820). 

 Larus hutcliinsii, RicJiardson, Faun. Bor.-Amer. ii. p. 419 (1831). 

 Plautus glaucus (Briinn.), Belch. Nat. Si/st. Av. Lonc/ip. p. v (1852). 

 Glaucus consul (Bole), Bruch, Joxirn. Orn. 1853, p. 101. 

 Laroides glaucus (Briinn.), Bruch, Journ. Orn. 1855, p. 281. 



Although Linnaeus and Brisson appear to have heen unacquainted with 

 the Glaucous Gull^ it was described and named by Briinnich before the 

 publication of the twelfth edition of Linnaeus, but after the appearance of 

 Brisson's great ATork. It was first included in the list of British birds by 

 Dr. Edmonston, who obtained an example in 1822 on one of the Shetland 

 Islands. It is only a winter visitor to the British Islands, appearing 

 somewhat irregularly. As might be expected, it is much more common in 

 Scotland than in England or Ireland. It has, however, occurred on almost 

 every part of the English coast, and has been known accidentally to stray 

 some distance inland. 



The Glaucous Gull is a circumpolar bird, breeding in the Arctic Ocean 

 on the shores of both continents. Its only known breeding-station in 

 Norway is at Vardo, in the extreme north-east. It also Ijreeds on Nova 

 Zembla, Iceland, Spitzbergen, and Greenland, wliere it has occurred 

 as far north as lat. 82°. In winter it visits the Baltic and North Seas. 

 Further south it must be regarded as an accidental straggler, occasionally 

 wandering to the Mediterranean and Black Seas. In the Pacific it visits 

 in winter the Kurile Islands and Japan on the west coast, but has not been 

 known to occur further south than Alaska on the cast coast. On the 

 Atlantic coasts of America it strays in winter as far south as Long Island. 



The Glaucous Gull is very nearly allied to the Iceland Gull, and is also 

 connected with Larus glaucescens through L. nelsoai. So far as is known, 

 the latter species is confined to Alaska ; it appear.-; to be a western form 

 of L. kumlieni, from which it scarcely differs, except in its larger size. 



