652 LARIDi^. 



of rare occurrence iu the north and east of that inland sea. 

 It visits the coast of the Netherlands and of France, breeding 

 in Brittany ; and it ranges southwards in winter to Spain, 

 North Africa, the Canaries, and the Azores. In small 

 numbers it occurs in the southern part of the Mediterranean 

 as far as Malta ; and not only is it to be found occasionally 

 on the inland waters of the Continent after heavy weather, 

 but it annually ascends the Garonne as far as Toulouse, 

 whence it probably crosses over to the north-western portion 

 of the Mediterranean, where it is not uncommon. Either 

 by following the river- system of Kussia, or by some other 

 route, it arrives on the Black Sea and the Caspian in 

 winter; and Th. von Heuglin records it as a straggler to 

 the coast of Egypt. 



Returning northwards, we find the Kittiwake common 

 in summer on the coasts of Iceland, Greenland, and the 

 Arctic Sea, from Baffin Bay to the Pacific, and to the 

 Preobraschine Islands on the North Siberian shore. South- 

 wards its range extends to Japan. Among the myriads 

 which frequent the islands and shores of Bering Sea, 

 some examples have minute but tolerably developed hind 

 toes, with, at times, a visible nail ; but this variation is 

 not always equal in extent, even on both feet of the 

 same individual, and there is a gradation between this 

 variety, which Bonaparte distinguished by the name of 

 Rissa kotzebiu, and the ordinary Kittiwake. Nor is this 

 development confined to the birds of the North Pacific, 

 although more frequently observed there than elsewhere, for 

 it is well marked in an example in the British Museum, 

 obtained by Boss at Port Leopold, Whalefish Islands ; also 

 the only specimen which Mr. A. H. Cocks brought back 

 from Spitsbergen has distinct hind toes (Zool. 1882, p. 410), 

 and similar instances might be multiplied. There is, how- 

 ever, a perfectly distinct species, Rissa brevirostris, Brandt, 

 which is abundant between Alaska, Kamtschatka, and the 

 Sea of Okhotsk, breeding in thousands on the Prybilov 

 and Aleutian Islands ; and the latter may at once be recog- 

 nized by its very stout bill, orange-red legs and feet, and 



