ICELAND GULL. 457 



tlie name of Larus leucopteriis has occasionally been taken in 

 tins country, and was at first confounded witli the Glaucous 

 Gull, another rare species, having also white wings, and only 

 differing from it in being considerably larger. It happens 

 too that the various names which have been proposed for it, 

 not excepting that of leucopterus, White-winged, given by 

 Faber himself, are not wholly free from objection, since both 

 these Gull are glaucous in reference to colour, both are in- 

 habitants of Iceland, and both have the principal wing-feathers 

 white. The Iceland Gull bears the same proportion in size 

 to the Glaucous Gull, that the Lesser Black-backed Gull docs 

 to the Great Black-backed Gull, and I have therefore added 

 an English name referring to size by which they may be dis- 

 tinguished. Dr. Richardson's notice of this species in the 

 Fauna Boreal I- Americana may be quoted in aid of this view. 

 " Larus leucopterus. Faber. During Captain Ross"'s and Sir 

 Edward Parry's first voyages, many specimens of this Gull 

 were obtained in Davis' Straits, Baffin's Bay, and at Melville 

 Island. M. Temminck, to whom they were communicated, 

 considered it at first to be merely an Arctic variety of Larus 

 argentatus, the Herring Gull ; and, in deference to his 

 authority, it was described as such by Captain Sabine, Both 

 he and other Ornithologists have, however, since that time, 

 published it as a distinct species under different appellations, 

 the one M'hich we have selected having the priority. The 

 plumage of L. leucopterus differs little from that of L. 

 glaucus ; but the great superiority of the latter bird in size 

 is sufficient to distinguish the species." Captain James C. 

 Ross says of this species, in his last Appendix, ••' it Avas found 

 breeding on the face of the same precipice with the Glaucous, 

 but at a much less height, and in greater numbers. It is not 

 unfrequently met with at the Shetland Islands in the winter 

 season, and may therefore be added to our catalogue of 

 British Birds." Mr. Audubon says it is not rare in winter 



