338 BRITISH BIRDS. 



Zembla, Bennett Island, Herald Island, the Parry Islands, and Grinnell 

 Land. In winter it occurs more or less accidentally as a straggler to the 

 coasts of Norway, Labrador, Newfoundland, and has occurred as far south 

 as Denmark, Germany, Holland, France, and Switzerland. It has not 

 been recorded from the Pacific ; but Nordenskiold found it in the winter- 

 quarters of the ' Vega,' not far within Behring's Straits. 



The Ivory Gull, or Snow-bird, as it is often called, spends most of its 

 time amongst the ice, and is frequently found on the pack-ice at a consi- 

 derable distance from land. It is almost omnivorous in its diet. Saxby 

 watched an Ivory Gull for some time swimming about and feeding on the 

 fry of the coal-fish. Capt. M'Clintock found the remains of lemmings 

 round a nest of the Ivory Gull, and also fresh pellets consisting of their 

 hair and bones. Mr. Kumlien examined the stomachs of several examples, 

 which lie found to contain small crustaceans. Nordenskiold remarks that 

 Ivory Gulls were often seen sitting for a long time round a seal-hole, in 

 order to feed upon the excrements ; and its taste for the flesh of the seal 

 and whale, for blubber, and for garbage of all kinds is well known to 

 whalers and other Arctic voyagers. Like the other Gulls, it spends a great 

 portion of its time on the wing, picking up most of its sustenance without 

 aliohtiug on the waves, but is occasionally seen swimming on the surface 

 in places where its food is very abundant. It is described as a ravenous 

 eater, and as very fond of attending the whalers and walrus- hunters to feed 

 upon the scraps of fat and flesh. Its cry is described as a loud and dis- 

 agreeable scream. 



The Ivory Gull generally breeds in colonies on inaccessible cliffs. Dr. 

 Malmgren obtained its eggs in Spitzbergen on the 7th of July, 1861, where 

 it was breeding on the side of a steep limestone precipice several hundred 

 feet high, in company with the Kittiwake and the Glaucous Gull. The 

 uests were shallow depressions in the soil, carelessly lined with dead grass, 

 moss, other weeds, and a few feathers. M^Clintock found it breeding 

 at Prince Patrick's Island, the most westerly of the Parry Islands, south- 

 west of Grinnell Land. Two of the nests were built on low islands, and a 

 third was on a bare patch of gravel near the beach. They were almost 

 entirely composed of moss, and one of them contained, in addition, a little 

 white down and a few feathers. The egg obtained by M'Clintock is in the 

 Museum of the Royal Dublin Society ; two eggs obtained by Malmgren are 

 in the Stockholm Museum ; and a third is in the collection of Mr. Benzon 

 in Copenhagen. No other authentic eggs are known to exist. It is not 

 known that the Ivory Gull lays more than one egg. The specimen in the 

 Dublin Museum measui'es 2*45 inch in length, and 1"7 inch in breadth; 

 the ground-colour is buflish olive, and the surface-markings, which are 

 distributed over the entire shell, are dark brown and pale brown, and 

 the underlying markings, which are very large and conspicuous, are 



