THE KITTIWAKE GULL 287 
GLAUCOUS GULL, OR BURGOMASTER 
LARUS GLAUCUS 
General plumage white; back and wings bluish grey; tail and termina 
portion of the quills white; bill strong, yellow; legs livid flesh-colour. 
Young mottled with white, grey, and light brown; shafts of the quills 
white ; in other respects like the last, but the bill is longer and stouter. 
Length about twenty-nine inches; breadth five feet two inches. Eggs 
as in the last, but of a greener hue. 
Tue Glaucous Gull, a large, handsome, and powerful bird, resembles 
in many of its habits the species last described, but it has not been 
known to breed in even the most northerly of the British Isles. It 
pays occasional visits to our shores in winter. A few specimens 
only have been shot in the southern portion of the island, and no 
large number in Scotland; but in the neighbourhood of the whale 
fishery it is common enough. It is very voracious, and not only 
eats fish, whether dead or alive, and shares with the whale-fisher 
in his booty, but pursues other sea-fowl, compels them to disgorge 
their prey, robs them of their eggs, and, if they resist, kills and 
devours them.! In short, it is the very tyrant of the Arctic Ocean. 
Its predatory habits were noticed by the early navigators in these 
waters, who gave it the name of Burgomaster ; but as no accurate 
description of the bird was brought home, and as some of our other 
large Gulls are open to a charge of similar rapacity, the name was 
naturally transferred by Willughby to another species, which he 
calls the Wagel (probably the Great Black-Backed Gull in immature 
‘plumage). This was in 1676. A hundred years later Brunnich 
gave it the name of Glaucous Gull; but it is still called Burgo- 
master by the Dutch, and by Arctic voyagers generally. 
Mr. St. John gives the name of Wagel to the Great Grey Gull. 
THE KITTIWAKE GULL 
RISSA TRIDACTYLA 
Hind toe represented by a small knob without a claw. Summer plumage 
—head and neck pale bluish ash, a few fine dusky streaks before the eyes ; 
forehead, region of the eyes, and all the under parts, pure white ; upper 
plumage bluish ash; first primary with the outer web black, four first 
tipped with black, two or three of them ending in a small white spot, 
fifth having the tip white bordered with black; bill greenish yellow; 
orbits red; irides brown; feet dark olive-brown. In winter, the whole 
of the head and neck is white. Young birds have the head white, mottled 
with grey and dusky; upper feathers tipped with brown; bend and 
upper edge of the wing black; primaries black; tail black, towards the 
end tipped with white; bill, orbits, and irides, black; feet pale brown. 
Length fifteen and a half inches. Eggs stone-colour, spotted with grey 
and two shades of brown. 
THE Kittiwake Gull takes its name from the cry with which in the 
1 A specimen shot in Norfolk was found to contain a full-grown Golden 
Plover entire. 
